1 Peter 4:12-19
In heaven we will never grow tired of meditating on the sufferings of the Lord Jesus; they will be the inexhaustible theme of our song. However, the opportunity to share those sufferings will have gone. Suffering with Christ is a deeper and more intimate experience than suffering for Him. To share in His sorrows, to know the ungratefulness, the scorn, the contradiction, the reproach (v. 14), the blatant opposition which He encountered, is really to know Him in all the feelings He had. Paul’s ardent desire was to "know him . . . and the fellowship of his sufferings . . ." (Philippians 3:10). But there is one type of suffering which Christ could not experience: that which we go through when we do wrong. We cannot escape from the consequences of our inconsistencies. A dishonest Christian will reap what he has sown before the courts of men and if he meddles in someone else’s business he may be punished by the latter. The saddest part is not the trouble which we bring upon ourselves, but the dishonour heaped upon the name of the Lord. On the other hand, suffering as a Christian, that is to say as Christ did, brings glory to God in bearing that lovely Name (v. 16; Acts 4:17; Acts 4:21).