Philippians 1:29

For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.

I know we don’t like to talk about it but saints if you are saved you are going to suffer. John 16:2 They shall put you out of the synagogue, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he is doing God’s service. I mean that’s suffering isn’t it? There are those that tell you, you don’t have to suffer. You even have folk out now saying that if you’re saved, you’ll never get sick. I don’t know what you’re going to do about Job. Job was a man that feared God and avoided the presence of evil. That boy got sick! Lazarus got so sick he died and he was Jesus’ best friend. You don’t get any closer to the Lord than that. Hezekiah got sick and turned his face to the wall and he was talking to the Lord all at the same time. In this earthly body, there will be sickness.

Philippians 1:29 says, “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him but also to suffer for his sake.” This type of suffering means to experience something painful. You see just because you believe, it doesn’t mean that suffering is excluded. “Oh, I believe Jesus died for me; I believe his Father raised him from the dead; I ain’t got nothing else to worry about.” But you’re still going to suffer. You didn’t suffer before you got here; you’re not going to suffer when you leave here. So if suffering is coming, it’s got to come while we’re here. Now a lot of suffering we bring on ourselves. If we’re bogged down in debt, we can’t blame that on the Lord unless we’ve been giving him our whole paycheck ever since we began working. Often when we’re bogged down in debt, we’ve spent money we didn’t have on things we didn’t need, trying to impress folk we didn’t like. It was not because we had been suffering for the Lord’s sake.