SermonIndex Audio Sermons
SermonIndex - Promoting Revival to this Generation
Give To SermonIndex
Discussion Forum : Articles and Sermons : The Awesome Weapon of Being Willing to Suffer by K.P. Yohannan

Print Thread (PDF)

PosterThread
sermonindex
Moderator



Joined: 2002/12/11
Posts: 39795
Canada

Online!
 The Awesome Weapon of Being Willing to Suffer by K.P. Yohannan

It is a mistake to think of suffering as just a “necessary evil.” It is not. The willingness to suffer is an awesome weapon— a powerful instrument of war before which Satan is bound.

Do you grasp that? Satan is bound by the weapon called your willingness to suffer!

Throughout His ministry on earth, numerous times Satan tempted Jesus to avoid suffering and the cross. But in the end, the victory was won, and Satan was eternally defeated. How? Hebrews 2:14 tells us—“[Jesus destroyed] him who holds the power of death” through His death on the cross.

Jesus did not overcome Satan when he:

healed the leper
raised the dead
fed the 5,000
walked on water
preached the Sermon on the Mount
No! Little did Satan know, laughing as Jesus was dying on the cross, that the Son of God would destroy him through that very death—through His suffering!

Embracing Suffering

Embracing of suffering is what we are called to imitate. Just like he did with Jesus, Satan tempts us to avoid suffering and the cross we are called to carry daily. Why? Because he knows that just as Christ defeated him through His suffering, we, too, defeat him and his forces when we are willing to follow in the footsteps of Christ and embrace suffering.

We must see the precious gift that suffering for the Gospel is. Remember that the times the Church was the strongest and most flourishing were the times it experienced great persecution. Even Paul confessed that the suffering he faced “really served to advance the gospel” (Philippians 1:12).

When we have this kind of attitude, nothing becomes impossible.

Suffering As a Witness

We had four brothers who were caught and beaten and their Bibles and books burned. As they were being dragged out of the village to be burned alive, a schoolteacher saw them and ran to the police station to report what was happening. Before these brothers were torched, they were rescued by the police.

After the incident, these brothers wanted to go straight back to the place where they had just been beaten, desiring even more to see their persecutors come to Christ. They knew that they may be beaten again, and maybe even worse.

But that was nothing if only they could see these men understand the love that Christ has for them.

What can the devil do to these kinds of people? Anything is possible for those who have this kind of readiness to endure whatever is necessary for the sake of reaching the goal.

from: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/kpyohannan/2019/02/weapon-willing-to-suffer/


_________________
SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2019/2/19 7:15Profile





©2002-2024 SermonIndex.net
Promoting Revival to this Generation.
Privacy Policy