LS-17-Fellowship in Suffering

Fellowship in Suffering "That I may know Him ... and the fellowship of His sufferings."

Heart-searching words are these. Can we share with the apostle so noble an aspiration? Who is sufficient for these things? Week by week we gather together, and seek by beautiful symbolism to enter into fellowship with our Lord.

We take the bread, and it speaks to us of a broken body. We receive the cup, and it brings the message of blood that was shed. Do we desire to enter into fellowship with Him there? "This is My body given for you." Have I been prepared to endure for Him? "This is My blood of the new covenant." Have I been willing to pour out the energy of life itself for His sake? The Master definitely calls us to this sacred fellowship. "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." In the work of redemption which He carries on in the world, His saving grace becomes effective when men are prepared to suffer with Him. It may be in some act of self-denial for His sake-a surrender of personal inclinations or tastes that means genuine sacrifice. It may be in some deed of service to which duty seems to call us, but which is not in the line of easy achievement for us--some task against which our nature rebels, but which provides us with a sure means of helping Him. It may be in some work of blessing to needy men and women--the kind with whom our Master loved to associate so much, and to whom some kindness rendered, Jesus regards as given to Himself. There is no higher exhibition of goodness than this, the voluntary acceptance by good men and women, of privation and suffering to redeem the lost. Paul did it, Carey did it. The hosts of saints who through the ages have made the gospel effective have done it.

We must recognise, of course, that no participation in suffering for Christ’s sake and for the sake of others, can ever compare with His. Probably we can never apprehend, except in the dimmest kind of way, the travail of His soul. "We may not know, we cannot tell, what pains He had to bear." He is the Redeemer; we are always the redeemed, and can never share those sacred prerogatives which are His alone. But as redeemed men and women we are saved to serve, and blessed that we may bless, and all such service is costly. Our weekly communion at the Lord’s Table, in memory of Him, will bless us indeed, if it brings us to compare our lives with His, in our willingness to endure and even to suffer, in a noble cause.

"O Lord and Master of us all!
Whate’er our name or sign
We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call,
We test our lives by Thine."