23) Strength in Suffering Series
My sister in Christ struggled for years with health problems that she couldn’t get medical help for because her insurance refused to cover her conditions. It was a long time before the healthcare acceptance finally came through, and we all rejoiced with her because she was finally able to see the specialists who could help her. While the wait is long and the suffering is great, being disabled in our nation affords privileges that don’t exist in some countries. Rules and building codes for accommodating the handicapped have become standard procedure so that organizations must spend the money to make things easier on those who are living with mobility problems. Proof of disability grants one access to many financial and physical benefits. These are weaknesses that are treated with care and concern, and many of us reach out readily for these accommodations. Yet, our weaknesses in the faith are an embarrassment. We hide our problems and pretend to be “just fine.” We know everyone has weaknesses, but it is distasteful to mention addictions, chronic states of depression, or any shortcomings, for that matter. Similar to the disabled who reach out for aid in our country, we should consider how we have even more reason when we are weak to reach out to God’s family.
For our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself.
Philippians 3:20
Paul used a similar Greek word to this word “citizenship” in the beginning of his letter when he talked about the Christians’ “manner of life” (Philippians 1:27). There is a small difference in these words. “Manner of life” referred to a citizen’s behavior in God’s kingdom and “citizenship” in this verse focuses on belonging to a community, one to which all Christians belong. Christians are already wholly within Christ. They are not partly in Christ and working toward being all the way in Christ. There is no holier section of Christ that only the really busy and morally superior Christians attain. There is no colony within Christ that is more advanced in works or in reputation. Instead, you, Christian sister, are part of one nation found in heaven even while you live on this earth. That is what life in Christ gives you, a place to belong, no matter what happens here.
This life, Paul tells Christians, is being lived in a “body of humiliation.” God created us with slaves’ bodies, subject to pain and shame and weakness. Jesus endured the cross in the same lowly body. This is what the eunuch from Ethopia reads about in Isaiah, where the prophet states, “In his humiliation his judgment was taken away…(Acts 8:33). The eunuch lived in a mutilated body. He knew the humiliation of a slave, and he was reading of the prophecy of One who would endure in a slaves’ body to give us a new body. Paul says we are enduring the oppression of our physical bodies and looking forward to the freedom of the promised body we will receive. Dear Christian sister, your life in your earthly body lacks so much! But you will not always exist in the body you have now. There is a new body waiting that will be in the image of Christ’s glory. In contrast, those who teach that we are not enough in Christ will exist forever in a lacking, tormented state.
Paul’s hope rests in Christ’s power to take what he is at that moment and change him eternally. He encourages his brothers and sisters to adopt the same view—that whatever they endure in their physical bodies of shame, pain, embarrassment, and discomfort will not always be. They will become new at the end of time. Your body today is not the end result because Jesus has already promised to change your body of humiliation for a body of Christ’s glory. Your life right now is lived in Christ, and you rest entirely on the assurance of what He will do with you in the future. You don’t need to follow a man-made checklist to be a cream-of-the-crop Christian. Instead, you are working toward the glorious creature you are going to be by using your weakness to rejoice in Christ’s strength (2 Cor. 12:9).
Wherefore, my brethren beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my beloved.
Philippians 4:1
You are longed for. God longs for you. The Father and the Son want you to be with them. Your brothers and sisters love you and long for you to share eternity with them. I long to be with you in heaven. As you learn to hold up under the strain of living in a body that is lacking, please realize that you are already a joy and a crown. You are precious and highly favored and sought out. What you lack in this life will be made up by your King and Savior! The battle is won by Christ already, so keep letting Him be your firm place to stand.
Live like you are loved. Devote yourself to what you can do to love back. Don’t look at someone else’s self-help recommendations; love the people around you and find ways to show that love. Make the effort and let God take on what is too much for you. He put you where you are to do what you can do. Be your all in Him by not hoping in yourself but hoping in the new creature you are to become.
Go on to Bearing the Yoke.
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