Suffering for Christ

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 31st of January, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. 

We start in 1 Peter 4:16: 

"Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.  

Peter says, just a little bit earlier on, if you are going to suffer, then suffer for something worthwhile. Don't suffer for being a thief or, a murderer or an evil-doer. Rather suffer for being a Christian because your reward at the end will be wonderful. If you are suffering because you are a thief, you are an evil-doer, at the end you will suffer even more when you go to hell for eternity. 

You know the old saying, it says," It takes a thief to catch a thief"? I am laughing because it is so true, isn't it? Look at the people that God has used to change the world: Moses - Moses was a murderer. Remember, he killed the Egyptian slave driver, and then he had to flee for his life. He is a giant in the faith. What about Paul, maybe the greatest of all the apostles? He was part and parcel of killing the first martyr in the New Testament, Stephen. That's right, he was the instigator. He was holding all their coats while they were stoning the man of God to death. What about Peter, himself, who wrote this very letter? He was a blasphemer. He kept changing feet; he was like a bull in a china shop. He just kept messing up. But the amazing thing is when these men and women, like Mary Magdalene - seven demons were cast out of her. She was an immoral woman, yet she became probably the most faithful of all to the Lord Jesus Christ; she never left Him, not right to the very end. 

I have seen it in my own life. I have seen people who I thought I would never, ever give a chance to, and then they get gloriously saved. They meet the Lord and become great ambassadors for Him. Charles Carlson, they call him "The Hatchet Man"; he was President Nixon's righthand man. They said he would walk over his own mother's grave to get something, but he got exposed; he got sent to jail in place of the president because the president never got sent to jail. In jail, he met Jesus, and after that, he started the Prison Fellowship, which went right around the world. 

So today, if I am talking to a man who is suffering, rather suffer for Jesus than for your wicked ways.

God bless you and goodbye.