I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus.
If you follow a political party or a person, what does it offer? Prosperity and fulfilling of ideologies, authority and power.
Here is a God who promises kingdom as one among the few inheritances that we will get. Kingdom of heaven as promised by him, not just something you will get after you die. That is one aspect of it. Jesus prayed, Your kingdom come as it is in heaven. It is here. It is now. It is his way in our lives. Abundant life, life to the fullest, life as he intends it to be. He in us. He is eternal life.
But along with that eternal kingdom, with all its richness active in our life, he also promises suffering. Why would somebody promise you such an inheritance? One, because we are in a fallen world and now we are aliens to the system, in fact, enemies. Anything which is foreign to the system will be pushed out, will be ousted out, and therefore we suffer.
Secondly, our Lord, our brother also suffered. So in Jesus, this is our inheritance. This system hated him, therefore it will hate anything that belongs to him. The ruler of this world has become our arch enemy. That is enough for us to suffer.
Not only suffering becomes our inheritance, the third thing that he promises is patient endurance. Endurance is the ability to go through suffering without neither giving up nor retorting. To believe that God is in control and cling on to him as you go through it patiently. This is something that is given to you as you go through suffering. Not complaining, why should I only go through it? Why me? But facing the mountain with the gift of patient endurance given to you as an inheritance, and then it looks like a molehill only.
Not drudgingly, not dragging yourself as a forgotten warrior, but confidently and boldly as a victorious son of a king.
This is our inheritance.
Image courtesy: gemini
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