For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18)
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. (II Corinthians 4:7-12)
As I read the
passage from Romans 8, I immediately heard Paul’s words from II Corinthians 4
describing the kinds of sufferings he experienced because of his preaching of
the good news. I could picture one of those videos where one person records
themselves singing the 4 parts of harmony and then syncs the videos so we can
hear what they sound like together. And, since I have trouble carrying the
melody, I find well-done harmonies amazing!
Anyway, I’m not
sure whether Paul felt he could carry a tune at all, but it is interesting what
happens when we let what he wrote in one letter harmonize with what he wrote in
other places.
Now, how did
meditating on this, praying about it, looking up words and meanings, and
letting things flow out of my heart as I prayer-journaled about them, turn into
God’s ministry to me today?
First, it was the
discovery that “sufferings” refers to our inner heartaches, griefs, and sorrows
as a result of external trials and tribulations.
In other words,
this is not only saying that the external sufferings we go through are nothing.
Rather, it is putting the focus on the internal sufferings we truly do
experience because of those external tribulations. Even with the realness of
the pain we have felt, it is still not even worth putting that in the same
category as the glory that will be revealed at the coming of Christ and the “glorification”
of the children of God.
What that did for
me was put Paul’s arm around my shoulder (metaphorically speaking) and assure
me that the personal, inner, painful struggles that have come from things I
have experienced because of my faith in Christ are real. He wasn’t minimizing
them. In real life, they are huge, like me in relation to the planet. But in
eternity, they are tiny, like this planet in relation to the Milky Way. In this
life they are struggles for real; in the life to come they are quickly
forgotten “like a dream when one awakes”.
Second, harmonizing
II Corinthians 4 to Romans 8:18 stirred my heart to really feel the wonders of
what we have in Christ to such an extent that I began feeling what matched the
revelation of God’s word. While doing things “by the Spirit” gives us an
advantage over those who only live by GIGO[1] as
an act of the will, there is a spiritual reality that where we set our minds
affects how we feel. If we set our minds on the flesh, we reap the fruit of the
flesh. If we set our minds on the Spirit, we reap the fruit of the Spirit.
Between my own time
in the word this morning, sharing what I did in the box version (above), and
sharing with my family for their encouragement, it all was very personal for
me. If Paul were here mentoring me, he would (in essence) be saying,
"Monte, the 'sufferings' you feel within you, the afflictions, the sorrows, the griefs you carry for people's souls that they don't even care to think about for themselves, the attachment pain you experience because of what Satan has done to the best of relationships, as bad and painful as these are, they are not even worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed when our Savior returns and gathers us to be with him forever.
“He will wipe away every tear from every broken relationship. He will wash away all the pain of loss and replace it with the treasures of your eternal home. And when he personally wipes the final tears from your face, and your heart, you will no longer think on such things in the wonders of the surpassing glory of seeing Jesus’ eyes with your own, and feeling his joy in you to the full, and your joy overflowing into my joy, and mine to yours, so that the glory of that foreverness where God ‘will dwell with us, and we will be his people, and God himself will be with us as our God’ will saturate our immortal beings with the satisfactions that, in the trials and tribulations of this life, we cannot even imagine!”
Anyway, that’s a
bit of what it was like to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” this
morning. And, even as I write that now, I recall that this is the very thing I
asked God to do for me before I opened his word to see what he had for me
today! Praise the Lord!
© 2026
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
[1]
GIGO = garbage in; garbage out
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