“WE SENT TIMOTHY, our brother and God’s servant in the gospel of Christ, to establish you in your faith and to exhort you, that no one be moved by these afflictions. You yourselves know that this is to be our lot” (1 Thess. 3:2–3). We finished yesterday by stressing the possibility of being imitators of others, provided we are primarily imitators of Christ. This verse stresses the possibility of being helped by others, even though we are primarily in Christ.
To be in Christ is to be in the fellowship, the koinonia, of fellow believers. This new life in Christ cannot be cultivated in solitary aloneness. The Hindu ascetics try it and end in vacuity. Christian ascetics tried it and ended in the same vacuity—and ultimate extinction. A high-court judge left the bench and sat, clothed in ashes, on the banks of the Ganges in solitary meditation. When I began a conversation with him he politely said, “Please leave me alone. You are disturbing my meditation.” He was of far more use to the world as a judge than as an ascetic. As the latter he was withering.
Those who inwardly withdraw from fellowship while remaining in society undergo that same sterile degeneration. We need our Timothys to establish us in the faith, for that faith is by its very nature corporate. The point of help that Timothy brought was that Christians should not be moved by afflictions, that it is our very lot as Christians. This cuts across the thinking of many present-day Christians, for they think the special favor of God is shown by their exemption from afflictions. They are in the success mentality of modern life instead of in Christ. To be in Christ is to be different, therefore persecuted. Society demands conformity; if you fall beneath its standards it will punish you; if you rise above its standards it will persecute you. Hence this is our lot.
O Jesus, Lord, I do not ask to be exempt from suffering. I only ask power to use whatever comes, good, bad, or indifferent. In Thee I am able for anything. So I am safe, since I can use all. In Thy blessed name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: If afflictions are my lot, then I choose to turn afflictions into opportunities.
