Devotional Guide
For the week of January 23, 2005
Suffering with no complaint
To Read: Isaiah 49:14-18
To Know:
"Behold, I have graven you on the palms of my hands..."
(Is.49: 16)
A generation ago carmakers capitalized on the race to put a man in space.
Designers made autos look like space vehicles. The car I drove back then
had a metal fin atop each fender
that came to a sharp point over the headlights. The car looked as if it
should be able to fly. One Saturday morning, in the dead of winter, I was
shoveling out from a storm when
I slipped and reached out to brace myself. My palm impaled itself on the
fin. I don't know which hurt worse, driving the point in or pulling my hand
off the spear. Since then I have
read Isaiah with far greater appreciation. I cannot imagine taking a stylus
and deliberately carving someone's name into the palm of my hand. That is
exactly what God did in the
cross of Christ.
The names of the redeemed are graven in God. True, God is spirit and has no
palms, but what a powerful way to express his love. It was as a man that
God engraved our names in the place of great pain. Those nails had our names
on them.
To Do:
The cross of Christ invites us to look at our own suffering, differently.
Paul wrote to the Colossians, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake,
and in my flesh I complete what
is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the
church."(Col. l: 24) Christ suffered to give the world a gospel to
believe. Paul suffered to make that gospel known. It is when we suffer
without complaint that the world must take our testimony to Christ
seriously. Suffering is the gift of Christ to Christians. Taking up our
cross is the heart of Christian mission.
To Ask:
Father, deliver me from the viewpoint of the world regarding suffering. Give
me the point of view of Jesus who was the suffering servant. Please redeem
the sufferings I willingly trust to you.
01265$-03188
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