6But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; 7and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort.
Paul explains that he and his fellow servants willingly suffer hardship in order to help the Corinthians spiritually. Here the term “comfort” leans more to the “help” side of the original Greek. To be sure, all who embark on preaching the gospel, serve as a missionaries, or in general dedicate their lives to helping people grow spiritually, will run into difficulties they would not otherwise encounter. What motivates them to do this?
There are some who serve out of a desire for what they will get. Peter warns elders (who are to be examples to the believers) against this carnal motivation: “[S]hepherd the flock of God among you … according to the will ofGod; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness” (1 Peter 5:2). Some may serve as a means to gain favor with God, even an attempt to earn their salvation. However, Paul and his associates willingly suffered hardships purely for the benefit of those they were reaching for Christ. They served out of the strength of the help they had received in sufferings, so that they could help others endure their sufferings.
So what exactly is the help that we can expect from the Lord, and from others who have suffered for Christ before us? Help comes in the form of supernatural endurance in the midst of suffering. Here is where the faith of many lags, because their focus is on relief from the struggle. How often do we ask, “Lord, please remove this cause of my suffering” when we should be praying, “Lord, help me endure this suffering so that I may be able to encourage others to endure their suffering”? If our focus is inward, then our prayer will be the former, but if our focus is outward, to be used of God for the benefit of others, our prayer will be the latter. Our prayer reveals whether our motivation is for our own benefit or the benefit of others (in love).
The reality is that for many Christians, the suffering does not let up. Witness those with cancer, chronic pain, repressive environments, and persecutions that do not relent. What comfort or help does the Lord provide? Has He abandoned them? Absolutely not! He provides endurance, which only suffering can engender. And those suffering as described above can be the example that provides hope to others who are going through their own suffering.
Lord, help me see the greater purpose in my suffering, to produce endurance.
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