THE PURPOSES OF TESTINGS, AFFLICTIONS AND THE CHASTENING OF GOD…..FOR HIS CHILDREN. 

It first should be understood that there is a great difference between enduring with faith and patience testings and afflictions… and that of being chastened of God. But they both have the same end in view, which is worthiness. Upon finishing this chapter, the reader will understand how trials and tests make us stronger, and that they are meant to move us on from immaturity into maturity. When trials come, our goal is to not ask, “Why me?” or cry out in despair, “Woe is me!” But rather, we hope to be as Paul who rejoiced in his trials and suffering.  In Romans 5:3-4 he says, “….we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.” For it is only through the tough process of refining that pure gold comes out of the fire. Peter reaffirms this understanding in 1st Peter 1:6-9, which says: “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.” More on the salvation of the soul later. 

God is Love, but love is something more than mere kindness. It is essential to rightly divide Scripture, for a follower of Christ should comprehend that Love and Mercy is not all that He is. The Almighty Creator’s attributes also include Holiness and Righteousness. Without which understanding the believer will be susceptible to modern-day Christendom’s wrongful teachings. For example, one popular teaching is when they say, “Christ Only”. But by this they mean: “At the receiving of Jesus Christ as Redeemer, this imputes to us forgiveness of all sins; past, present and future.” And that this imputation “automatically makes the Believer a righteous recipient of all the eternal inheritance promises of God.” The free gift of eternal life was indeed promised to those who would merely believe in their heart and confess with their mouths Jesus is Christ but God’s promises of eternal rewards are to the one who overcomes. They are NOT automatically IMPUTED to the one who merely believes. This false teaching regarding eternal rewards being for all, along with the misappropriation of Scripture meant for the sanctified by the merely born again, destructively forms an undeveloped narrow view of God’s Word, that being that God’s Goodness revealed in Jesus Christ excludes the Severity of God (See Romans 11:22). Or it essentially represents that Love cares not whether one is good or bad, but only that the Believer escapes suffering (in that they teach Scripture represents that a Christian has acquired a right to escape suffering).  

The problem with reconciling God’s Love with man’s suffering is difficult to understand as long as His Love is trivialized. To think that God has redeemed us through Christ that we might be happy, or healthy, or wealthy, or that we might love Him (although this capacity to love Him we have, to a lesser or greater degree), is to fail to comprehend that we are re-created/born again that He might Love us! Although He Loved us before, He is what He is (The Great I Am) and accordingly certain things repel Him from us, (see Ephesians 4:30 which warns not to grieve the Holy Spirit by the works of the flesh) He now intends to make us (who are repulsive in our fleshly nature) more intimately Lovable (such as when we walk in the fruits of the Spirit, which can only make us happy). To experience His Love in its fullness is to surrender to His command and conform to His desired will. When we want to be something He does not want us to be (that faulty and fleshly reasoning as a result of the fall), then we want something that will not make us happy. Our Creator and Father intends to give us what we need, not what we think we want. We should have the attitude that God can do “whatever it takes” to conform us into His image. 

If we are Born-Again we are in a new state wherein our carnal mind may be renewed. We are redeemed from the kingdom of darkness and are now children of God, as well as servants. (A servant is someone who sets aside all rights of his own to serve a Master. Romans 6:22, 8:17) Now having answered the call of the Gospel of the gift of eternal life, the New Covenant child of the Father has a “heavenly calling” (See Hebrews 3:1) This is bore out in Scripture as the future calling to the heavens that are related to this earth, as the reward of those found worthy of the First Resurrection out from among the dead (See Luke 20:35 which refers to “those who are counted worthy to attain that age,  [Christ’s millennial kingdom] and the resurrection [out Greek] from the dead…..”) 

This calling equates to, and is nothing less than, overcoming that which is contrary to God’s desired will within ourself, and being then an Overcomer (Revelation 2:7,11,17,26-28,3:10-12,21) who will be found worthy to rule with Jesus, King of Kings, as “joint heir” in His promised Millennial Kingdom. (Revelation 20:4-6, 12:5, 2:26-27, 3:21). “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.”  

Now suffering has to do with worthiness unto glorious intimacy.  And as Love caused some inherent sufferings of conscience unto that event encounter with Him resulting in the new birth and the humble acceptance of the gift of eternal life, so now as His Child, and no bastard, you are the object of His chastening unto that much greater intimacy. It is the Father’s discipline, like unto to a (first born) son, in that he might alter and align his ways in accord with the glory-filled calling in royal Bridal intimacy to co-rule in Christ’s Millennial Kingdom from the heavens above this earth.  

This fulfilling of this calling of the Father requires selflessness in loving servitude to His Christ, in that it is now required that “self” which He left in the Born Again Believer, exists to be abdicated unto loving unity with the Father and the Son (John 17:21-23). Now we may ask, “What is “self/flesh”? Self/flesh is when one becomes aware of God’s will in himself and then a contrary will rises up within. This is the pride of the fallen nature, and although dependent upon God, he desires to be independent of Him. It is just there, in that moment, that one may or may not choose to abdicate self will. The difficulty being that “self” reliance is the natural inclination since the Fall and the loss of his internal spirit guidance, thereby becoming a new species. A “species” that brought itself into existence; that awful abortion of the “very good” state in which man was created, brought about by self-will, in that man turned from God to self. 

We are to choose in that same manner in which Jesus lovingly suffered in selfless abdicated servitude to the Father, going from the only Begotten Son to the begetting Son through obedience. (Begetting meaning Author of a new Creature) Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.” [Hebrews 5:7-9] Having met the goal of God set for man’s salvation (something beyond just merely ‘saved’), that which required His obedience, He now sets this ‘salvation’,  not before the World, but before God’s children that obey Jesus Christ. To “…suffer with him…” is to suffer like Him. And to suffer like Him is to be empowered by Him unto obedience. The only Begotten Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that they might have the opportunity to suffer like Him, in the hope of being made perfect. That is to say going on beyond the mere confessing and believing unto rebirth of the spirit in eternal life (Romans 10:9), for that is far from being made perfect, but the obedience to Christ following rebirth of the spirit as a servant unto eternal salvation of the soul in glory. (James 1:21, 1st Peter 1:9)  

So the further salvation of our souls has to do with eternal glory, as opposed to just eternal life. And Romans 8:16-18 shows how suffering (righteously) leads to eternal glory. It says, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” Paul also says in 2nd Corinthians 4:17: “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory…” By humbly yielding to Him (even in times of discipline) we can attain unto the “double portion” inheritance of the first-born son. Again, the child of God receives the imputation and inheritance of eternal life through Jesus’ righteousness, and the first-born son receives the far greater rewards, earned by his own righteousness, not only of reigning with Him in the millennial kingdom but in the receiving of eternal glory.  

There was no way (even now the path is narrow) whereby man might extract himself from the power of self (the carnal reasoning of the mind and sensual body). No way from that hopeless fallen condition, scripturally called the flesh, except now through the Author, the Son of Man, whose “sufferings” blazed a trail that willing disciples may follow. It is not a broad trail, but a narrow, winding, and challenging path which requires our careful attention to stay on it. We are to stay on that path the discovery of self-less-ness, where a holy internal war is fought on the ground of grateful humility in the power of the Holy Spirit (John 7:37-39, Acts 1:8). And by His Spirit, we can endure all things, knowing that, “…. all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” [Romans 8:28]