Sufferings

The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the affliction of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I am aware of their sufferings.

I would still dread all my sufferings; I know that You will not acquit me.

Not only that, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;

I consider that our present sufferings are not comparable to the glory that will be revealed in us.

For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which accomplishes in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we experience.

And our hope for you is sure, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you will share in our comfort.

So I ask you not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.

I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death,

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His body, which is the church.

…my persecutions, and the sufferings that came upon me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.

…trying to determine the time and setting to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.

But rejoice that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed at the revelation of His glory.

As a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings, and a partaker of the glory to be revealed, I appeal to the elders among you: