How privileged we are today to see that the momentary lightness of affliction works out for us an eternal weight of glory, and our sufferings are the means for God to have a way to work Himself more into us! Amen!
In a proper and good way, we all need to become more spiritual, that is, we need to be persons who live not according to the flesh or in the self but in the spirit, people in spirit.
We are quite shallow in this matter; we may be in spirit when we’re meeting with the saints or when we have a time with the Lord, but what about the rest of 99% of our daily life?
God sees that we do love Him yet do not live in spirit, and He knows the best way to help us do this.
He is sovereign in all things to arrange that all things work together for good (Rom. 8:29); all things work together for our transformation inwardly and conformation outwardly to the image of Christ.
For this, He allows sufferings and difficulties, for in this way we open to Him more, and He has a way to work Himself deeper into our being.
There are so many things in us that we don’t allow God to have access to; there are so many aspects of our being that we cordon off from Him, and He knows that there’s no way to get in and get through unless sufferings and unpleasant things happen.
For Him to carry out His organic salvation to work Himself into us, even into the very fibre of our being, He needs to break through our outer man.
But our outer man is so strong, so good, and so righteous in itself; throughout out life we build up our own version of being good, being spiritual, being upright, and being righteous, and God has to strip us of all these things so that He Himself would be our righteousness, uprightness, spirituality, and goodness.
This is what we see that happened in the case of Job; he was a good, upright, righteous, and moral man, but he was devoid of God; so God allowed Satan to bring suffering upon him – both the suffering of loss of all possessions and the physical suffering – for Him to strip Job of all his attainments so that God would work Himself into him.
Job, however, did not see this matter; at best he admitted that there must be something in God’s heart concerning all these things, but he doesn’t know what it is.
Paul, in the New Testament, had a very similar situation of suffering, but his attitude was completely different, for he admitted in 2 Cor. 4:16-17 that, even though our outer man is decaying, our inner man is being renewed day by day.
Even more, the momentary lightness of affliction works out for us – more and more surpassingly – an eternal weight of glory.
Yes, there are sufferings; yes, there are afflictions; yes, we are pressed and constricted; but all these are a means for God to work in us an eternal weight of glory, that is, for God to work Himself into us as glory more and more.
Not being Self-Righteous but being Open to be Saturated with God as He Deals with us by means of Sufferings and Afflictions
The eight times of Job’s speaking to his friends in the book of Job exposes him to be a certain kind of person. Firstly, he was self-righteous (Job 6:30; 9:20; 27:5-6; 32:1); he was blinded and even darkened by the success and attainments of his natural being.
Job was contented with what he had become and what he had achieved, yet he was unaware of his miserable situation before God (cf. Phil. 3:9; Rev. 3:17-18).
He was a man who made it on his own; he achieved a self-made righteousness by his own strength, and he was proud of it.
He insisted on his self-righteousness to the point of arguing with God about it, trying to keep his integrity until the day he died.
In the eyes of God, however, he had a miserable situation, for he didn’t really know God, he didn’t see God; he only heard about God but didn’t gain God as he should, and he didn’t have God as his real righteousness and perfection.
Job did acknowledge God in name but not in reality, for he heard about God but was not saturated by God, filled with God, and mingled with God to become one with God (Psa. 92:10; Lev. 2:4-5; Rom. 8:16; 2 Tim. 4:22: 1 Cor. 6:17; Eph. 3:19; 5:18, 26; Heb. 2:10-11).
In such difficult times, when we’re marred in suffering, we realize how little we know God in reality; we may know what the Bible says about God, but we don’t really know Him in depth, in reality.
Sufferings and difficulties expose us of how little we know God in reality.
Like Job, we may be so filled with ourselves, for, in our natural man, we seem to be quite alright, being successful at being a good person and a self-righteous person. Oh, Lord!
What God wants is to gain a person saturated with God, filled with God, and mingled with God to become one with God; He wants us to be filled with the fullness of the God to be His corporate expression on earth.
So the Lord counsels us, as He did with the church in Laodicea, to come to Him and see for real how miserable we are; we may think we’re rich, well-dressed, and we see things, but in reality, we are wretched, naked, and blind.
May we come to the Lord again and again, and may we pay the price to obtain God Himself as our riches, our covering, and our eyesalve to see; may we be willing to pay the price to gain more God even in our environment arranged by God.
Job didn’t possess any element that indicated some aspect and some feature of the New Jerusalem as God’s organism to live God and to express God for eternity.
In contrast to this, the overcomer has written on him the name of God, the name of the New Jerusalem, and the person of the Lord has been wrought into him (Rev. 3:12).
Granted, Job was in a primitive and early age of God’s revelation to man, but we today need to see what is God’s economy and have a vision of what God is doing in His economy.
In His economy, God strips us bare from anything coming from the natural source in terms of attainments and successes; He doesn’t want any of those – He wants to work Himself into us and write His name on us to make us the New Jerusalem.
God wants His people to be constituted with God, Christ, and the New Jerusalem.
Neither Job nor his friends knew the purpose of God’s dealing with him; however, Paul knew the purpose of God, and he declared to us as New Testament believers that the affliction the believers are suffering works out for us an eternal weight of glory (2 Cor. 4:17). Hallelujah!
The God of glory is our glorious portion for us to enjoy and gain for eternity.
Today God as glory is being wrought into our being level-by-level, stage-by-stage, and we experience being transformed from glory to glory, by the affliction and the necessary suffering, so that an eternal weight of glory may be wrought into us.
This is so that we would express nothing else but God Himself as glory, and we would live out nothing of ourselves but God. Hallelujah!
Lord Jesus, save us from our self-righteousness; save us from being darkened by the success and attainments in our natural being. Save us from being content with what we have become and what we have achieved. May we come to You and pay the price to gain more of God and be filled with God. Amen, Lord, may we know You not only in name but also in reality so that we may be saturated with God and mingled with God to be one with God! Work Yourself into us more and more, dear Lord. We open our whole being to You so that, no matter what we go through, there would be an eternal weight of glory being wrought into us. May we gain more of God in all the things we experience and pass through. May the momentary lightness of affliction work out for us, more and more surpassingly, an eternal weight of glory!
Being open to God as we are being Consumed by Sufferings to gain an Eternal Weight of Glory
If we merely had the book of Job, we may not understand why did this dear one have to go through so many sufferings and afflictions.
Especially as believers in Christ, we may think that, now that we believed in the Lord, He will give us a life full of joy, peace, and rest, and He will remove all suffering from us.
However, both as human beings and as believers, we experience our share of sufferings and afflictions, and sometimes it may seem that more suffering is allotted to us than to those in the world.
Praise the Lord for Paul’s testimony and his pattern, which shows us clearly that, as we are consumed by sufferings, we can gain an eternal weight of glory!
In our experience of God’s consuming and stripping through sufferings and afflictions, we should not lose heart but rather realize that, as our outer man is decaying, our inner man is being renewed day by day.
As believers in Christ, we need to realize that our momentary lightness of affliction works out for us an eternal weight of glory (2 Cor. 4:16-17).
According to our feeling in our experience, we may think that our suffering seems endless and very painful, but if we have God’s view of things, we will realize it is a momentary lightness of affliction.
May we remain open to God as we are being consumed by sufferings to gain an eternal weight of glory!
May we realize that we need to experience God’s consuming and stripping in our daily living because God wants to renew us!
Renewing comes about not only by our being in the word of God with much prayer and consideration but even more, through the consuming and stripping through the sufferings and afflictions in our environment.
The weight of glory that we have gained differs, based on the amount of sufferings that we experience.
Through God’s consuming, the glory that we will share will become an eternal weight.
Job considered his suffering of affliction as being something very heavy, but Paul considered his affliction (which lasted much longer than Job’s and even ended in martyrdom) to be momentary and light.
May we realize that our suffering and affliction today is momentary and light, and may we not care for it but rather open to the Lord and allow Him to increase the eternal weight of glory in us.
The more we suffer for the Lord’s sake, the more there’s the potential for us to gain God as glory being wrought into our being.
The more we suffer today for the Lord’s sake, the more weight of glory we will share in eternity.
So in our daily living, we should seek to magnify Christ by living Him, whether through life or through death, by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19-21); this should be our normal Christian life.
When God created man, this is the kind of life He wanted man to live: a life of living Christ, magnifying Christ, and expressing Christ for the glory of God.
Unfortunately, we may still desire to have a high standard of ethics, we may build up our natural perfection and uprightness, and we may hold on to our integrity; this thing we do unconsciously.
So the Lord comes in, again and again, to tear down our natural perfection and uprightness, stripping us and consuming us in our natural man so that He may build up a renewed man in God’s nature and attributes.
Such a person is constituted with God according to His economy, and he is never entangled by any troubles and problems, for he doesn’t look at the afflictions and sufferings but rather, he seeks to gain an eternal weight of glory for God to be expressed in man.
Lord Jesus, change our view and realization concerning the sufferings and afflictions we experience. May we realize that renewing can be consummated only by being consumed and stripped through sufferings and afflictions. May we open our whole being to You as we pass through difficult things so that we may gain an eternal weight of glory. Amen, Lord, may we consider our sufferings as being a momentary lightness of affliction which cannot be compared with the eternal weight of glory to be gained! Yes, Lord, add more of Yourself as glory to our being so that we may be part of Your glorious expression! Have Your way in us, Lord, to tear down the natural man with its perfection and uprightness and built up the renewed man in God’s nature and attributes. Amen, Lord, fill us, saturate us, and constitute us with Yourself to make us part of the new creation, the one new man!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Job, msgs. 21, 23, 27-28 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes (2020 winter training), week 3, Job’s Experience of God’s Consuming and Stripping in the Old Testament Being Far Behind That of Paul in the New Testament.
- Hymns on this topic:
– I’m ashamed, my Lord, for seeking / Self to guard alway; / Though Thy love has done its stripping, / Yet I’ve been compelled this way. / Lord, according to Thy pleasure / Fully work on me; / Heeding not my human feelings, / Only do what pleases Thee. (Hymns #626)
– We are pressed on every side; unable to find a way out; / Persecuted and cast down; / Every suffering in our natural man is another opportunity / For our inner man to develop and be renewed. / So we do not lose heart though our outer man is decaying; / We do not lose heart for our inner man is being renewed day by day; / And we do not regard the temporary things which are seen / But the things which are not seen which are eternal. (Scripture song)
– He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater, / He sendeth more strength when the labors increase, / To added affliction He addeth His mercy, / To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace. / When we have exhausted our store of endurance, / When our strength has failed ere the day is half-done, / When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, / Our Father’s full giving is only begun. (Hymns #723)
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