Christ's Sufferings and Our Consolation Abundantly Given

For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation aboundeth by Christ.—Our cross is not the same as Christ's, yet we bear a cross. Our sufferings are not the same as Christ's, yet we suffer. The cross resembles Christ's, and our sufferings mirror His, but not in kind or object. There exists a wide difference: our trials have nothing to do with expiation.

The meaning of trials reveals Elohim's earnestness toward us. He does not abandon us but takes great pains with our spiritual education. He is no careless Father. Trials assure us of His love: "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten." They draw prayer from us, knit us in sympathy to the whole body of believers, and teach us compassion for the brethren. Suffering brings us into a receptive mood for blessing and softens our hearts. It makes us prize the Word—the Bible assumes new aspect when all else darkens, yet Scripture brightens. Trials shut out the world, drawing a curtain round us until the world becomes invisible. They bid us look upward: set your affection on things above. They turn our hope toward the Lord's great coming.

Consider: the quality of suffering depends not upon external causes but upon the nature of the faculty which suffers. A one-pound stroke upon a small bell produces modest sound; the same stroke upon a ten-thousand-pound bell produces a roar. Christ's infinite nature received infinite suffering; thus His consolation flows infinitely to comfort us.