It Has Been Granted to You

I often think of the hymn that has the line: “This world is not my home, I’m just a’passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.” It and other similar sentiments can be helpful to us. It is especially helpful to me when I find I become too attached to this world. I have this bad habit of following politics. Politics has this tendency to make you angry, and if it doesn’t make you angry, it makes you depressed. It is helpful to be reminded in those times that the troubles of this world are temporary (and politics is often the most temporary of problems). The reminder that there is a permanent home of joy awaiting us can be of extreme comfort.

But these sentiments can be taken too far. They can become a form of escapism. We desire heaven so much that we simply give up trying in this life. We feel no need to do anything, because, “Hey, this world is not my home right?” So we spend our days bemoaning the hardships of life, and daydreaming of heaven while our life passes us by.

This was not how the Apostle Paul viewed the promise of heaven. “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain,” (Philippians 1:21) is what he told the church at Philippi. He then proceeded to elaborate that if he were to live, he’d have more time to labor for Christ, but to die would mean he would get to be with Christ. It is an extremely powerful and memorable piece of Scripture, one perhaps heard many times over in sermons and Bible studies. Perhaps something that we don’t always consider (though, we ought to, because Paul mentions it only a few verses earlier), that the “living” part included being imprisoned for his faith (1:13). And in other epistles we can find instances of Paul’s “living for Christ” involving all manner of hardships and tribulations. As he explains in another epistle: “…far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27)

Paul’s idea of living for Christ, meant to live through the adversity he was going through. In fact, Paul tells the Philippians, “Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel” (1:12). Paul saw his current suffering as a blessing, because through it, the gospel was proclaimed. Do we think of our suffering that way? Do we see the opportunities our sufferings might give in spreading the gospel?

Perhaps we should, because after speaking of himself, Paul goes on to say to the Philippian church: “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me” (1:29-30). That word “granted” stands out to me. Paul says that we have been granted the opportunity to suffer for Christ’s sake. Have you ever considered suffering to be an opportunity granted to you by God? I can freely admit that I do not very often. In fact, I often see suffering as an imposition in my life. I often think, as Job and his friends did, that if I’m suffering, that must indicate God’s displeasure with me in some way. But Paul sees it almost the exact opposite way: It is a gift given to us.

So how can Paul say that suffering can be a gift from God? Perhaps there could be multiple facets to answering that question, but the direction Paul goes in the Philippian letter is something like this: because God exalted Christ through suffering. As Paul explains: “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (2:5-11). Consider how Paul began this whole description of Jesus: “Have this attitude in yourselves.” We are called to have the same humility, the same love, the same willingness to suffer as Jesus Christ did. But if by those actions, God exalted Christ, what will God do for us if we follow the same path as Jesus?

“So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (2:12b-13). God is not just at work in our walk with him at the end, at the reward, at the “somewhere beyond the blue.” If we obey and work out our salvation on this earth, it is God who is at work in us now. And just as God glorified Christ because he humbled himself and suffered for our sake, God will glorify us if we similarly humble ourselves and suffer with Christ. This is, in part, why Paul could say it was granted to us to suffer, because through the gift of suffering with Christ, we will also be glorified with him in the age to come.

So, yes, it is appropriate to long for the eternal rest far from the suffering and sadness of this current world, as Paul said, “to die is gain.” But as long as God grants us time here on Earth, let us remember also as Paul said, “to live is Christ,” and let us similarly live for Christ as God grants us the time.