I was reading in Philippians 3 the other day, and a phrase in verse 10 caught my eye in a really fresh, new way. Verse 10-11 reads: "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."
The whole verse was really powerful to me, but particularly what I highlighted jumped out to me and made me ponder it. Anytime I see the word suffering in the New Testament I usually immediately think of physical pain or losing my loved ones. The New Testament writers really embraced suffering in a way that I really desire to be able to, but usually feel so far from, and even a little bit afraid of. For the relatively small amount of suffering I have experienced, I have seen God's goodness, faithfulness, presence, and sovereignty so clearly! I know His grace is sufficient for everything we go through, and this helps me in thinking about suffering.
However, this verse struck me in a new and different way than I usually think about suffering. The phrase that made me ponder the most was: "being conformed to His death." It seems that this death he is talking about conforming to is not a physical death or physical suffering necessarily, but a different sort of death- a death to self or complete surrender- which leads to a Spirit filled, resurrection kind of life both now and for eternity. As I pondered this phrase, a few other verses came to mind. The first that came to mind was Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." There is a type of suffering here, a crucifixion of self with Christ, which Paul says now enables him to be conformed to the image of Christ and live a Spirit filled, faith filled life to the glory of God.
The second passage that came to mind was all of Romans 6, especially vs. 3-11:
"Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus."
When Paul says "likeness of His death" he is talking about an inward death to self and death to sin, which ultimately leads to freedom from sin and power in this life and physical resurrection to be with God in a new, indestructible body for the life to come. It occurred to me that perhaps the biggest thrust of the entire New Testament is a finishing with the old life and a putting on of the new. Crucifying the old life and living for God. Not walking according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Not living to please yourself, but to please God and serve others. Giving up your own will and doing the will of the Father. Not living to bring glory to self, but glory and honor to God. Finishing with the powerless, defeated, sin filled life and living a powerful, victorious, Spirit filled life. There are countless passages that speak this language of death to self into a resurrection kind of life that Jesus now lives.
How this death to self relates to suffering is captured and depicted to me most clearly in Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion. “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” The primary reason Jesus was anguished over the cross, even more than the physical pain, was because of the separation from His Father that He would experience. I cannot imagine the perfect love that existed between the Father and the Son (and the Spirit) from all eternity, and this fellowship not only being severed, but the Father's wrath being poured out upon His Son for my sin that he took upon Himself. It was this hell that Jesus dreaded the most and literally made Him sweat blood. However, this passage also reveals a sort of suffering that takes place when we die to our will and live unto the Father's will. Jesus said (John 6:38), “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me." Jesus never once did his own will, but only the will of His Father. Wow!! (**one note on what "dying to your will" does not mean at the bottom).
While we may experience something that feels like suffering when we die to our will, it is really no suffering at all, because the reward so far outweighs the cost. It is like complaining that you lost your job which pays $500 a month but got a new job which pays $25,000 a month. It may "feel" like losing your job was suffering, but in reality, this was no loss at all!
But Jesus is so understanding and merciful because he understands that it is hard to cut off the sin in our life (even though it leads to true life), and that it is a form of temporary suffering and death. I know this because of the way He told us in the sermon on the mount to cut off our hand or gouge out our eye if it causes us to sin, for it is better to enter heaven maimed than to go to hell. Losing a hand or an eye compared to the glory of entering heaven is no comparison, but in the moment, losing a hand or an eye is no small matter. It is painful. Of course he is speaking figuratively here, but I feel that he purposely chose language to indicate the fervency with which we should seek to eliminate sin in our lives--to the point of internal pain and suffering (and often external too).
I pray that I am able to embrace all types of suffering when the Lord wills it in my life, but I pray that I can embrace the suffering of dying to myself and my own will every day. For I desire to experience the resurrection life flowing in and through me like rivers of living water, the victory over sin that Jesus experienced 24/7 even though he was tempted just like me, the transformation of my heart into the likeness of Jesus, the fellowship and intimacy with the Father that Jesus had, the fruit of the Spirit in my life, the renewing of my mind leading to the knowledge of His will, all of the glorious heavenly blessings that we can experience in Christ in this life, and ultimately the bodily resurrection unto perfect union with God and the final putting off of our sinful nature. I believe this is the suffering that God desires from us the most, and the rewards are not even worth comparing to the cost!
**what dying to our will does not mean: I do not think it means that all of our desires are null and void and to be ignored and snuffed out. I have seen myself make the mistake of equating giving up all desire with surrendering my will, and I don't think this is what it means AT ALL. Perhaps we need to explore and look deeper into our desires to learn what is at the core of them and bring them to God with open hands, a broken heart, and a deeper longing for Him to fulfill our deepest desires as he surely wants to. While some/a lot of our desires might stem from the flesh, I think a lot of our desires are fractured and fallen desires which stem from the very image of God within us and how we were created. For example, pretty much everyone has a desire to receive the praise of man. But maybe the reason that we crave this praise from people is because we were created with an inbuilt desire to hear God say, "well done, good and faithful servant." Maybe the right desire here is to desire praise from God and not people, as Scripture affirms.
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