The chief lesson I must learn about the life of discipleship is that it is a life of pain. Too often my message has been, “Accept Christ and have a life of peace and joy.” Of course peace and joy follow, but not without pain, and that is where so many Christians grow discouraged and faint.
The pain that comes to us in following Christ is the pain of change. It is the change from living naturally to living spiritually. It comes, as Blaise Pascal says, from the ungodliness that is still left in us. The greater our resistance to this change, the greater our pain will be. The reason heaven will have “no … more pain” (Revelation 21:4, KJV) is that every will has been brought into complete harmony with God’s will; thus, the tension of wills, which is the source of pain, will be gone.
Many Christians make themselves unhappy because they resist the pain that in itself indicates victory. We live miserably because the natural man loves comfort and ease, and we have an erroneous view of the kind of work we expect Jesus Christ to do in us. He came to make us victorious, not comfortable, and victory means the gradual displacing of our natural life with His triumphant spiritual life. The difference between a Christian wallowing in self-ease and one who is triumphant is pain.
The comforting thing about the pain of discipleship is that it is a healthy pain. It is not the pain of breakdown and death, but the pain of healing and restoration. It builds and fashions me into the man God intends for me to be; it develops an incredibly strong character; and it perfects the image of God in me. “After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace … will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10). Thank God for the school of pain! May God make me a worthy graduate!
“Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged; bring me out of my distresses” (Psalm 25:16–17).
Daily with the King 