This doesn’t mean everything on the path is suffering you know that. Why would God ordain that the pathway to the inheritance be suffering, and only suffering? I mean, there is no other path of suffering-free access.

“All of our hardships are designed to make our faith stronger, to make us rely more on God.” If you’re in his face, saying, “I’m so tired of getting stubbed toes I don’t need another problem today this is a bad day” - look, if you’re not in hell, it’s a good day. How you handle a stubbed toe in relation to God Almighty bears witness to your faith in his providence. I don’t care if it’s a stubbed toe on the way to go shopping. And if you will embrace it the way verse 17 says, as your pathway to glory, God is triumphant and the devil is defeated. Suffering with JesusĮvery pain in your life, every frustration in your life, every conflict in your life, every difficulty in your life that you experience walking on the path toward the inheritance is suffering with and for Jesus, because it is being used by the devil to threaten your faith and used by God to strengthen your faith. Because if you limit it to only hard things done to you from others because you’re a Christian, you’re missing a big piece of your suffering. In other words, when it says in Romans 8:23 that we’re groaning, I would say all the groaning experienced on the path of obedience is what the suffering refers to in Romans 8:17. No pain, no gain no cross, no crown no suffering, no inheritance - that’s the way God has set it up. Here’s Pastor John in Houston, seven years ago, preaching on Romans 8:12–17. Kevin, a podcast lister who attends the church, has been trying to get me to play the following clip for five years now. The sermon was preached at Christ Community Church in Houston, Texas. What is God’s good design in our suffering? What’s he doing in us, and for us, and through us, in our pain? These are the kinds of questions every Christian will ask at some point, and they were answered by Pastor John in a sermon exactly seven years ago.

The sufferer and the witness wallpaper