the future grace of suffering

chapter twenty-eight of the purifying power of living by faith in future grace by john piper is titled "the future grace of suffering." below are quotes from this chapter.

when you know that your future is in the hands of an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-wise God who promises to work for your good, you are free to take any risk that love demands - no matter the cost. it is a biblical truth that the more earnest we become about being the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and exposing the works of darkness, and loosing the bonds of sin and satan, the more we will suffer. this suffering always threatens to destroy our faith in future grace. but if we are well-taught in the Word, and if the truth of God has gone deep into our soul, we will not be shaken. instead we will see the suffering itself not merely as a consequence of living by faith in future grace, but as another gift.

in the united states, the secular society at large, especially many of the intellectual elite and media leaders, are increasingly hostile to the evangelical church. the biblical version of faith and righteousness is not shared or admired in many segments of our society. the first amendment has been so twisted in the service of secular arrangements as to make it the warrant of harassment against christians. the name of Jesus is openly despised and blasphemed by famous entertainers in a way that in previous decades would have made them reprehensible in the eyes of the public, but today is approved or passed over.

we have, i fear, domesticated the concept of godliness into such inoffensive, middle-class morality and law-keeping that 2 timothy 3:12 has become unintelligible to us. i think many of us are not prepared to suffer for the gospel. we do not grasp the great truth that God has purposes of future grace that He intends to give His people through suffering.

strange as it may seem, one of the primary purposes of being shaken by suffering is to make our faith more unshakable. faith in future grace is like muscle tissue: if you stress it to the limit, it gets stronger, not weaker. that's what james means when he says, "consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance" (james 1:2-3). when your faith is threatened and tested and stretched to the breaking point, the result is greater capacity to endure.

God so values our wholehearted faith in future grace that He will, graciously, take away everything else in the world that we might tempted to rely on - even life itself. His aim is that we grow deeper and stronger in our confidence that He Himself will be all we need.

knowing God's design in suffering is one of the main means of growing through suffering.

...tribulations bring about perseverance, or patient endurance...until hardship comes into our lives, especially hardship for the sake of Christ and His righteousness, we do not experience the extent and depth of our own faith...and perseverance, character...literally the word...means "the experience of being tested and approved...if, when tribulations come, you persevere with faith in future grace, then you come out of that experience with a stronger sense that your faith is real...perseverance in faith...brings about the assurance of proveness...the reason that 'approvedness' brings about more hope is because our hope grows when we experience the reality of our own authenticity through testing. we learn through pain that God is faithful and our faith is real.

another of God's designs for suffering is that it magnify Christ's worth and power. that is grace, because the greatest joy of Christians is to see Christ magnified in our lives.

i do not wish do interject my thoughts in his, as if my words are of such worth. however, i do want to share them despite my lack of eloquence. piper's words hold far more meaning than what i will merely attempt to address in following statements. in regards to his comment on domesticating godliness, i believe our moral compass has shifted, in light of recent events, more drastically as a nation. as child i remember being taught to submit to authority and obey the law, which at the time seemed to parallel the law in the bible. growing up in the bible belt it seemed to me that people as a whole, at least in the united states, believed the bible to be true as it is often termed 'a christian nation.' however, as piper clearly states the secular society is quite opposite of what i had to believe to be true...openly mocking Christ. and more drastically in recent days as abortion has been legalized, which is, plainly stating, 'killing an unborn child.' this is a monumental shift from the morals which we were founded upon. once upon a time the law of moses stating, 'do not kill,' was well accepted among the general population. we have strayed so very far from our mark. the truth is being hidden behind words of deception. those in favor of abortion have marketed it by attempting to degrade the meaning of life by calling the unborn child several other names during various stages of the gestation period. however, if someone were to kill a pregnant woman, the murderer would be charged for 2 accounts. but if the mother chooses to abort her unborn child, this is not termed murder but her choice. i have often heard the argument, that sways the heart of many individuals, that he/she believes in pro-choice because of women who become pregnant as a result of a rape. i have read in several places that only 1% of abortions are due to rape. this statistic is staggering to me even if i did agree with this particular situation we have allowed it for far greater numbers than for what it was intended. i do not agree with the notion that you should be allowed to choose if you wish to abort your baby just because you were raped. i believe this situation would be terrible. however, i do not believe that any situation should justify breaking the law. the other astounding comment i heard was that it will happen if it is legal or not; therefore, it should be legal so that it can be governed. my response is...it seems quite presumptious to assume that all of the people who have had abortions would have them anyway by other means if not in a 'situable environment.' and if that is not the belief, then once again we are allowing for a percentage of which i believe we should rather have institutions in place to care for these unwanted pregnancies. yes, that will be more money that we will have to spend. life is more important than money and we should treat it accordingly. however, our moral compass as a nation has shifted and what matters now to the people is the environment, our ecomony, money, and healthcare. while all these issues are important and should be considered in making decisions, our priorities have shifted and the morals upon which we were founded are no longer the true north.