Believers Are Called To Suffering, Not To Comfort!

There is a very popular theology that the African church imported from American televangelists. Its basic idea is that your faith in God will get you a free ticket out of life’s hardship. “Just believe in Jesus and you will live like a king; you will be healthy and wealthy; all the desires of your heart will be fulfilled.” According to that mindset, all you need is to speak positive words and perhaps plant a financial seed and all your problems are gone. Just like all the false teachings, this one is also based on a wrong understanding, or many times willful twisting of Scripture, most particularly Jeremiah 29:11. As I hinted in one of the articles, the Jeremiah 29:11 promise was given in the context of a people that were beginning their 70 years of suffering in Babylon under the cruel hands of Nebuchadnezzar. All that teaches us that God many times allows the best of His children to face the worst kind of suffering on this earth. That is not only biblical but it is also the reality of this world.

Am I saying that I love suffering? Absolutely not! In fact, I hate it; I am so afraid of pain, sickness and hunger; I just can’t handle that kind of life. I don’t like it when I see it happening to other people as well. My point is, Scripture – notably the New Testament – never promises an easy comfortable life where you get all you want the way you want it. Just the opposite. It means that as we follow our Saviour, the calling is to deny ourselves, take up our crosses (symbol of suffering) and follow Him. This means leaving our comfort zones, and we start to live our lives sacrificing our time, money and bodies for the sake of His Name. Imagine yourself being there with Stephen, before he was stoned to death for the sake of Christ, would you have reminded him before he died that Jesus wanted him to “unlock the kingdom principles of success”, so that he buys nice clothing and a new house? It’s ridiculous of course! Why then do we believe this foolish message that is preached everywhere today if we know within ourselves that there is something wrong with it?

You can’t tell me that you are a good Christian who loves your Bible yet you have never read the story of the disciples of Jesus being beaten, and imprisoned for their faith, just as the Lord had promised them (Mat 24:9). Why then have we invented another Christianity that has eliminated suffering completely? Just take a closer look at what this verse says:

For to you, it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake - Philippians 1:29

Here is another one.

That no one should be shaken by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we are appointed to this -1 Thessalonians 3:3

You know what? It’s either we read different Bibles or some of us deliberately ignore other parts of the Bible that talk about suffering; we don’t like them because they can’t fit into what we believe. When you are like that, what’s to stop you from flipping the Bible only looking for favourite verses that excite your flesh? I understand that some of us believe this false success gospel because that is what our trusted leaders have been teaching throughout our whole church lives. I heard one leader say, “It’s impossible for you to be a child of God and lack.” By that, I assume, he meant that you will always have your fridge full of eggs and your wardrobe fully packed with suits just because you accepted Jesus as your Lord and personal Saviour. Is that really the message of the Gospel? If so, then someone forgot to teach that to Paul the good Apostle because his Christian faith was lived “in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Cor11:27). Perhaps he needed a powerful man of God to deliver him from that “spirit of lack”, don’t you think?

To say that a Christian will never suffer; angels of money will follow him where ever he goes is a straight lie. This is what you are fed every Sunday and it’s heresy, my friend. Because the day your daughter gets sick, the day you lose your spouse through death, the day you get fired from that job, is the day you get bitter against God, then you turn your back from the Faith and never come back. Yet the real reason is not that God failed you, but that you were taught wrong theology to begin with. You see beloved, we must all learn to think beyond what our spiritual leaders say. Not to rebel and disregard what they say, but to process it in our minds; to think independently while searching the scriptures to see if these things are so – it’s called discernment(Act 17:11). 

Have you noticed that all cults and false religions always advertise themselves as having the ability to “solve all your problems”? Just recently, I picked up a small pamphlet from a herbalist who claims that he has power to change your life; your barrenness, joblessness, lost lover and what else will all be over as soon as you visit him. Therefore, this “come to Jesus and you will make it in life” message took the same template, wrapped it with Bible verses and we all embraced it. Think of it this way, if you follow Christ because your aim is worldly success, then you are no different from those people that Jesus rebuked for looking for Him, not because they wanted to repent as a result of His preaching, but because they wanted another bowl of fish and bread(Joh 6:26-27).

Am I discounting that the Lord provides for His people? Am I ignoring that the Almighty gives jobs and marriages as a token of His goodness? You bet not. My issue is, God sometimes chooses to deny good jobs and healthy bodies for His people, not because He hates them but because He has determined to use that bad situation for His glory and for the spiritual benefit of those individuals. I can give you an example of a preacher lady; Joni Earickson Tada, who has been in a wheelchair for more than 61 years, plus cancer, yet she is one of the finest Christian persons you will ever meet. That is exactly my point.

Let me write these last words: The true message of the Gospel is not a call to self-enhancement but self-denial. It’s not about preserving the flesh but it’s all about dying to the flesh. Let us, therefore, go back and re-study our Bibles. Then we come to Jesus with the right motive of repentance, then we turn our backs against this temporal world and be ready to give our lives for His Name’s sake. “He who preserves his life will lose it, but he loses his life for my sake will find it”, says He.

Sinothi Ncube