Like Christ by Andrew Murray Lesson 5

Like Christ

by Andrew Murray

Lesson 5. Like Christ: In Suffering Wrong.

For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. 1 Peter 2:19, 20

It is in connection with a very everyday matter that Peter gave voice to those weighty words concerning Christ as our Surety and Example. He is writing to servants, who at that time were mostly slaves. He teaches them "to be subject with all fear," not only to the good and gentle, but also to the difficult. For, he writes, if any one does wrong and is punished for it, to bear it patiently is no special grace. No; but if one does well, and suffers for it, and takes it patiently, this is acceptable with God; such bearing of wrong is Christ-like. In bearing our sins as Surety, Christ suffered wrong from man; after His example we must be ready to suffer wrongfully too.

There is almost nothing harder to bear than injustice from our fellow-men. It is not only the pain: there is the feeling of humiliation and injustice, and the consciousness of our rights that asserts itself. In what our fellow-creatures do to us, it is not easy at once to recognize the will of God, who thus allows us to be tried, to see if we have truly taken Christ as our example. Let us study that example. From Him we may learn what it was that gave Him the power to bear injuries patiently.

Christ believed in suffering as the will of God. He had found it in Scripture that the servant of God should suffer. He had made Himself familiar with the thought, so that when suffering came, it did not take Him by surprise. He expected it. He knew that this way He must be perfected; and so His first thought was not how to be delivered from it, but how to glorify God in it. This enabled Him to bear the greatest injustice quietly. He saw God’s hand in it.

Christian! would you have strength to suffer wrong in the spirit in which Christ did? Accustom yourself in everything, that happens, to recognize the hand and will of God. This lesson is of more consequence than you think. Whether it be some great wrong that is done you, or some little offense that you meet in daily life, before you fix your thoughts on the person who did it, first be still, and remember, God allows me to come into this trouble to see if I shall glorify Him in it. This trial, be it the greatest or least, is allowed by God, and is His will concerning, me. Let us first recognize and submit to God’s will in it. Then in the rest of soul which this grieves, I shall receive wisdom to know how to behave in it. With my eye turned from man to God, suffering wrong is not so hard as it seems.

Christ also believed that God would care for His rights and honor. There is an innate sense of right within us that comes from God. But he who lives in the visible, wants his honor to be vindicated at once here below. He who lives in the eternal, and as seeing the Invisible, is satisfied to leave the vindication of his rights and honor in God’s hands; he knows that they are safe with Him. It was like this with the Lord Jesus. Peter writes, "He committed Himself to Him that judges righteously." It was a settled thing between the Father and the Son, that the Son was not to care for His own honor, but only for the Father’s. The Father would care for the Son’s honor. Let the Christian just follow Christ’s example in this, it will give him such rest and peace. Give your right and your honor into God’s keeping. Meet every offense that man commits against you with the firm trust that God will watch over and care for you. Commit it to Him who judges righteously.

Further, Christ believed in the power of suffering love. We all admit that there is no power like that of love. Through it Christ overcomes the enmity of the world. Every other victory gives only a forced submission: love alone gives the true victory over an enemy, by converting him into a friend. We all acknowledge the truth of this as a principle, but we shrink from the application. Christ believed it, and acted accordingly. He said too, I shall have my revenge: but His revenue was that of love, bringing enemies as friends to His feet. He believed that by silence and submission, and suffering and bearing wrong, He would win the cause, because this way love would have its triumph.

And this is what He desires of us too. In our sinful nature there is more faith in might and right than in the heavenly power of love. But he who would be like Christ must follow Him in this also, that He seeks to conquer evil with good. The more another does him wrong, the more he feels called to love him. Even if it be needed for the public welfare that justice should punish the offender, he takes care that there be in it nothing of personal feeling; as far as he is concerned, he forgives and loves.

Ah, what a difference it would make in Christendom and in our churches, if Christ’s example were followed! If each one who was reviled, "reviled not again if each one who suffered, threatened not,but committed himself to Him that judges righteously." Fellow-Christians, this is literally what the Father would have us do. Let us read and read again the words of Peter, until our soul be filled with the thought, "If, when you do good, and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God." [*See Note.]

In ordinary Christian life, where we mostly seek to fulfill our calling as redeemed ones in our own strength, such a conformity to the Lord’s image is an impossibility. But in a life of full surrender, where we have given all into His hands, in the faith that He will work all in us, there the glorious expectation is awakened, that the imitation of Christ in this is indeed within our reach. For the command to suffer like Christ has come in connection with the teaching, "Christ also suffered for us, so that we, being dead to sins, might live unto righteousness."

Beloved fellow-Christian! Would you not love to be like Jesus, and in bearing injuries act as He Himself would have acted in your place? Is it not a glorious prospect in everything, even in this too,to be conformed to Him? For our strength it is too high; in His strength it is possible. Only surrender yourself day by day to Him to be in all things just what He would have you to be. Believe that He lives in heaven to be the life and the strength of each one who seeks to walk in His footsteps. Yield yourself to be one with the suffering, crucified Christ, that you may understand what it is to be dead to sins, and to live unto righteousness. And it will be your joyful experience what wonderful power there is in Jesus’ death, not only to atone for sin, but to break its power; and in His resurrection, to make you live unto righteousness. You shall find it equally blessed to follow fully the footsteps of the suffering Saviour, as it has been to trust fully and only in that suffering for atonement and redemption. Christ will be as precious as your Example as He has ever been as your Surety. Because He took your sufferings upon Himself, you will lovingly take His sufferings upon yourself. And bearing wrong will become a glorious part of the fellowship with His-holy sufferings; a glorious mark of being conformed to His most holy likeness; a most blessed fruit of the true life of faith.

O Lord my God, I have heard Your precious word: If any man endure grief, suffering wrongfully, and take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. This is indeed a sacrifice that is well-pleasing to You, a work that Your own grace alone has done, a fruit of the suffering of Your beloved Son, of the example He left, and the power He gives in virtue of His having destroyed the power of sin.

O my Father, teach me and all Your children to aim at nothing less than complete conformity to Your dear Son in this trait of His blessed image. Lord my God, I would now, once for all, give up the keeping of my honor and my rights into Your hands, never more again myself to take charge of them. You will care for them most perfectly. May my only care be the honor and the rights of my Lord!

I specially beseech You to fill me with faith in the conquering power of suffering love. Give me to apprehend fully how the suffering Lamb of God teaches us that patience and silence and suffering avail more with God, and therefore with man too, than might or right. O my Father, I must, I would walk in the footsteps of my Lord Jesus. Let Your Holy Spirit, and the light of Your love and presence, be my guide and strength. Amen.

Note.

"What is it thou sayest, my son? Cease from complaining, when thou considerest my passion, and the sufferings of my other saints. Do not say, "To suffer this from such a one, it is more than I can or may do. He has done me great wrong, and accused me of things I never thought of. Of another I might bear it, if I thought I deserved it, but not from him!" Such thoughts are very foolish: instead of thinking of patience in suffering, or of Him by whom it will be crowded, we only are occupied with the injury done to us, and the person who has done it. No, he deserves not the name of patient who is only willing to suffer as much as he thinks proper, and from whom he pleases. The truly patient man asks not from whom he suffers, his superior, his equal, or his inferior; whether from a good and holy man, or one who is perverse and unworthy. But from whomsoever, how much soever, or how often soever wrong is done him, he accepts it all as from the hand of God, and counts it gain. For with God it is impossible that anything suffered for His sake should pass without its reward.

"O Lord, let that become possible to me by Thy grace, which by nature seems impossible. Grant that the suffering wrong may by Thy love be made pleasant to me. To suffer for Thy sake is most healthful to my soul." - From Thomas à Kempis, Of the Imitation of Christ, 3. 19, That the suffering of wrong is the proof of true patience.