Consider Christ in Affliction (VII): The Purposes of Christ

When suffering affliction, consider the purposes of Christ. He lived to do His Father’s will, to be sanctified through suffering, to merit salvation for His own, to present His church without spot or wrinkle to His Father. In a word, His life was God-centered.

His God-centered goals are numerous for you, too, in sanctified affliction: Sanctified affliction humbles you (Deut. 8:2), teaches you what sin is (Zeph. 1:12), and causes you to seek God (Hos. 5:15). Affliction vacuums away the fuel that feeds your pride. Bell-like, the harder you are hit, the better you sound. You learn more under the rod that strikes you than through the staff that comforts you. You discover the truth of Robert Leighton’s words: “Affliction is the diamond dust that heaven polishes its jewels with.”

Sanctified affliction serves to keep you in Christ’s communion, close by His side—to conform you to Him, making you partaker of His suffering and image, righteousness and holiness (Heb. 12:10–11). Stephen-like, the stones that hit you only knock you closer to your chief cornerstone, Jesus Christ, opening heaven the wider for you. Affliction rubs the rust off your locked heart and opens your heart’s gates afresh to your King’s presence-chamber. Yes, the rod of affliction is God’s pencil for drawing Christ’s image more fully on you.

Sanctified affliction serves to wean you from the world and to cause you to walk by faith. A dog bites strangers, not homeowners. Perhaps affliction bites you so deeply because you are too little at home with the Word and ways of God, and too much at home with the world. “God,” says Thomas Watson, “would have the world hang as a loose tooth which, being twitched away, does not much trouble us.” In prosperity, you often talk of living by other-worldly faith, but in adversity, you live your talk.