1 Peter 4:12 “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you.”

 

Everyone must expect some suffering in their life, but Saint Peter in this epistle warns however that as Christians we should expect certain extra troubles that the non Christians won't have to experience.

 

Saint Peter warns us not to suffer as “evil doers” as we can, as everyone else, bring suffering upon ourselves by cheating, stealing, committing acts of violence, or doing other things that are against the normal laws of the country. The prisons are of course filled with those suffering the consequences of doing those things.

 

What Saint Peter is concerned with in his epistle however is suffering for our faith. Suffering for Christ.

 

The suffering of those early Christians to which Saint Peter was writing at that time was particularly severe. In this early part of church history those Jews, like Peter, who had accepted Christ were outcasts from among their own people.

 

These early Christians, whether originally Jews or not, were very often forced to undergo many severe persecutions.

 

A great number were thrown into prison. Often it did not end there, but they were tortured, ripped apart by wild beasts, roasted alive, or covered with pitch and set afire.

 

These were indeed the “fiery trials” that the apostle speaks of in his epistle .

 

For those of us fortunate enough to live here in the United States today, we might indeed “think it strange” if we should have to suffer for our faith, but we really should not.

 

Our Savior Christ tells us, “The servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”

 

If you are scoffed at when you reveal your faith, or if you are slandered, mocked or maligned when you invite others to church, rather than being discouraged we should, in the words of Saint Peter, “rejoice in as much as ye are partakers of Christ's suffering; that when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy”.

 

His Holy Spirit is particularly with us when we suffer for Christ's sake. He assures us that we are God's children and as such are heirs of salvation. If we suffer for our faith in Christ we should trust that God will comfort us concerning our distress.

 

Perhaps, if we are not suffering any persecution, it is because we are not confessing Jesus to the world as we should.

 

We should really be asking the Holy Spirit's help, during this Lenten season, for us to do a better job of showing our faith to the world in the future, regardless of the cost.