What Is Jesus Suffering?

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together." Romans 8:16-17

Now I want you to ask yourself this question, our Father proclaims that we are joint-heirs with Christ if we suffer with Christ, so exactly what is Jesus suffering? This verse does not say, if we suffer what Jesus suffered, no, our Father says, if we suffer with Him, present tense. So what is Christ suffering? Christ is not sick. He does not fear and He is not suffering from economic problems. Jesus is not suffering from gangs or violence. Jesus is suffering, but what is He suffering? The answer is that He is suffering people not believing Him and thus not being empowered to walk in His abundant life. Jesus suffers people not being empowered to accept the sacrifice that He has offered and them suffering the consequences. We are joint-heirs with Jesus if we suffer people not believing our Father's Truth. Jesus suffered this persecution when He first came in the flesh and He still suffers it today! This persecution is not only directed at Jesus, but His body, which we are.

So far the Holy Spirit has led us in studying some pretty powerful truths with these studies. How many people though really have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to believe what we have studied? Unfortunately, not only don't most people believe what we have studied, but they aggressively oppose it. Churches have damned me for just putting some of these verses together in a conversation. I had a preacher hold his ears and say that he never wanted to hear me share these verses again. I was damned by a pastor, called a bastard by another, and asked to leave three churches. This is what our Father clearly tells us that we are to suffer for His Name's sake.

The sad truth is what we have studied is not popular. It's not popular because people want to earn it by themselves. They want to glory in the fact that they somehow did something to receive these things from God. The world and satan want to condemn us for not measuring up, so we will buy their tape series, or their books to assist us in measuring up. They want to condemn us so that we may tithe or give some sort of offering to make up for our inadequacies. But the Truth that we have studied is that it is all just a free gift from our Father. This is why Jesus is called a stumbling block, because He made it so simple. Our Father made it so salvation could never be earned and that is just not the way the world works. People stumble over this every day. But we are stable and fixed in the Truth and held firm by the Holy Spirit. Our Father, Who is God, is for us and with Christ, our Father can now use us to do all things!

Be simple this day in the power of Christ's might and just accept the free and glorious gifts of God! We haven't earned them! Yet, even in our humanity, we have received them all. We have been given everything: glory, sanctification, unity, power, ability, Truth, faith, and hope directly from the only One Who has them to give! And amen, one day, even those who now oppose will also learn it, Revelation 3:9.