Take It Patiently

Take It Patiently

If, when you do well, and suffer for it, you shall take it patiently, this is grace with God. 1 Peter 2:20.

To which they also were appointed. “Called you out of darkness into his marvelous light to proclaim His virtues.” (1 Peter 2:9). This is the heavenly calling. To be living revelations of Jesus Christ. To endure grief and suffering wrongfully. To “do well, suffer for it, and take it patiently. “This is grace,” this is acceptable with God, this is well pleasing to Him, and this is worthy. Yes, this is the life of Christ, manifested in our mortal body. This is walking as He walked.

Look at the example given us in the Lord from heaven: 1. He did not sin (v. 22) Yet He was numbered with the transgressors. He could say to His enemies “Many good works have I shown you from the Father; for which of those works do you stone Me?” John 10:32. They hated Him without a cause. He endured grief and “suffering wrongfully.”

2) He had no guile in His mouth. v. 22.

Never did a man speak like this man. All bore Him witness and wondered at the words of grace which proceeded out of His mouth. (Luke 4:22). Yet, He ‘suffered wrongfully’. 3) He did not threaten as He suffered. v. 23.

He gave His back to the strikers; He did not hide His face from shame and spitting. Holy, harmless and undefiled, He did well and suffered for it. He really suffered under the reviling. He really felt the pain of reproach. He really felt the taunts, and the humiliation laid upon Him. He said ‘reproach has broken My heart.’ (Psalm 69:20). He knew that an awful visitation lay before the ones who said, “His blood be on us and on our children,” yet He was silent, He threatened not.

4) He silently committed all to God.

To Him it was “The cup which the Father has given Me.” “Why not rather be wronged?” said Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians. Why indeed, with such a calling and such an example.

How often we have fled away to some place alone with God to shed bitter tears over some ‘battle of words’ and ‘strife of tongues’ that would have been avoided had we learned the grace of suffering wrongfully.

How is this grace possible to men and women in this present evil world?

Let us see how clearly the apostle gives us the secret of deliverance from the self-vindication and self-defence so contrary to the Spirit of the Lamb.

“Who His own self carried up our sins in His body to the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes you were healed.” V. 24. Peter knew the power of the cross, even as his “beloved brother Paul” did. He had actually been a witness of the sufferings of Christ. (1 Peter 5:1). How vividly he could depict this image; how his heart must have quivered as he remembered that denial of his Lord in the house of Caiaphas, when the meek and lowly One had been ‘wounded’ by one of His friends. How the tears must have come, as he remembered that all the Master had given him in return, was one look of love: one look. One look that broke his heart. Yes, Peter knew Calvary and turned from the example to show the secret of the life of enduring grief, suffering wrongfully, in the words: “His own self carried up our sins to the tree that we having died,” with Him who died, might follow His steps.

“If I could only get them to hear the gospel” we often hear said, but Peter tells us that our loved ones can be won “without a word.”

“Won” by taking patiently all contradiction, all suffering wrongfully. So shall the heavenly adornment come upon the earthen vessels, a “meek and quiet spirit,” which is of great price in the sight of God.

So may it be for His glory. Amen.