Love and Suffering

Love and Suffering

Love is a desire to offer yourself, to serve, and to give your life for those whom God loves. Therein is the love of God revealed that He sent His Son; and by this we know love: that He gave His life for us. Love can only be revealed through you as you give your life. Paul bore all things for the sake of the elect, even to the point of being bound in chains as an evildoer. 2 Tim. 2:9. The one who suffers the most, loves the most. The outcomes in the kingdom of God are the results of love having given birth with pain. Love finds its outlet in suffering for others; it rejoices when it has reached its goal.

An assembly poured out in tears before the face of the Lord for the salvation of sinners and the furtherance of the kingdom of God testifies to a deep love. They sow with tears, but they shall reap with rejoicing. Such love is not a passing mood that vanishes as soon as one has left the assembly. Not at all! It follows each individual soul day and night. It sighs, prays, and suffers unceasingly, in the depths of the heart. The assemblies with the greatest love are the ones that bear the most pain for the others, but they also see the most fruit.

A person who loves has no time to be intoxicated with his spiritual well-being as long as “Lazarus” writhes in pain outside the door. Love’s goal is not enjoyment, but serving the others. Love does not have time to speak derogatively about brothers and sisters, but it does have time to pray and suffer for them.

Who will join love in its deep sufferings, in its profound sorrow over all unrighteousness, slothfulness, and indifference? He who sows with tears shall reap with rejoicing. You will have no greater joy than that you see others walk in the truth. The apostle John had no greater joy than that his children walked in truth. 3 John 4. This was a mature joy, a fruit of suffering and labor. Paul loved so much that he set the salvation of others and their walk before God higher than his own salvation. Rom. 9:3. See also Exodus 32:32 concerning Moses. The goal of love is truth; therefore truth is its joy. It does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but suffers because of it.

Love brought Jesus to the cross. Love is not comforted as long as someone suffers; its nature is to suffer with, and suffer for. Therefore, if you want to be one with love, it will cause you to sacrifice your possessions, your income, your body, your understanding, your feelings, your will, your entire life—all as an offering. Love is obedient right unto death. It brought Jesus into death. Love celebrated its greatest victory in the midst of the greatest pain that anyone ever experienced, forsaken by God and man, alone with its pain and a feeling of being abandoned. He triumphed as the sacrificial Lamb that was slain. Do you want to overcome with Him as a sacrificial lamb? When Jesus sent out His disciples, He sent them out as lambs. Luke 10:1-3. In Romans 8:36 Paul declares that we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

Love will bring you into death: first into the death of your self-life so that you can be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity (1 Tim. 4:12), and then in order to serve and lay down your life, as Jesus says about Himself. Mark 10:45. Suffering for others gives birth to an impelling prayer in the soul.

The highest expression for “the fullness of the Spirit” is to lay down your life because you are apprehended of love. Let your life be a beacon of the highest expression of God’s will for you.