“Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator.”
—I Peter 4:19
Many look to religion—especially Christianity—as a sanctuary from trouble, as a refuge of comfort, peace, and safety. While thinking of God’s way in this manner is not wrong, it is perhaps naive. God does promise His people peace and security, but His promise is by no means unconditional and universal, nor is it necessarily applicable in this age.
Those who seek comfort and tranquility in the church of God are likely to be terribly disappointed.
The truth is that those who push Christianity as a soporific for the soul are not much better than snake-oil salesmen. While an individual can indeed find rest in Jesus (see Matthew 11:28-30), this idea must be tempered by other biblical revelations like, “I did not come to bring peace but a sword” (Matthew 10:34) and “Whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:27). Christianity—the kind found within the pages of the Bible—is more like a life-and-death struggle than it is a pleasant walk in the park.
The apostle Paul uses different metaphors for the Christian walk, and they contain a common theme, variously described as a fight, a contest, a struggle, a hazardous journey, etc. In I Corinthians 9:24-27, he compares life as a Christian to an athlete preparing for and running a grueling race to claim a victory wreath. Earlier in the book, he uses plants struggling to grow and a building being constructed in the presence of fire to illustrate the challenges working against the church (I Corinthians 3:9-15). He famously writes about Christians having to don God’s full armor because our fight, our warfare, is “against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:11-12). He admonishes Timothy that “as a good soldier of Jesus Christ,” he would have to endure hardship (II Timothy 2:3), adding later that “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (II Timothy 3:12). Throughout his life after his conversion, Paul himself suffered terribly, becoming an example of what life is like for some Christians.
Christianity—the kind found within the pages of the Bible—is more like a life-and-death struggle than it is a pleasant walk in the park. Click To TweetSo, God has not called Christians to a cushy life by any means. It is this fact that Peter acknowledges in I Peter 4:19. God wills that some Christians suffer, whether through sickness, loss, poverty, abuse, persecution, or some other means. He has His purposes for putting His children through troubles, as Peter speaks about in his epistle’s first chapter:
In this [salvation] you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (I Peter 1:6-7).
Suffering, then, is not a means of punishment but one of evaluating a Christian’s depth of faith.
The author of Hebrews provides another reason for such trials: “It was fitting for [God] . . . to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Hebrews 2:10-11). Simply, just as the Son, Jesus Christ, came to spiritual maturity through the suffering He endured, God’s other children—Christians down through the ages—undergo the same process to complete their spiritual development. As the chapter’s last verse tells us, because Jesus also went to the School of Hard Knocks, He is there to help when Christians face tests along the way (Hebrews 2:18).
A third reason Christians suffer is to bring glory to God. Peter had just mentioned this in I Peter 4:14-16:
If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people’s matters. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.
I Peter 4, then, ends with the apostle’s advice to Christians suffering along their walk to the Kingdom of God. They should “commit their souls to Him in doing good.” He tells Christians to entrust their lives to the faithful Creator of all things, as there is no one higher and more powerful than He! The One who is the almighty sovereign Lord of all things and who knows the end from the beginning is the only Person to trust if we want matters to turn out for the very best!
And how do we commit our lives to Him? “In doing good.” In other words, we are to continue to live as Christians should, following the commands of His Word, showing love to God and neighbor, and speaking words of truth and light to everyone. When times become tough, the last thing we should do is ease off on our commitment to the Christian life! When things get difficult, Christians need to go “all in,” trusting that if we do what God wants us to do despite the seeming odds against us, He will take care that we win in the end.
