11 It is a trustworthy saying:
For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him;
12 If we endure, we will also reign with Him;
If we will deny Him, He also will deny us;
13 If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. 2 Timothy 2:11-13 (LSB)
God’s ways are amazing to me. If you go back to the earliest posts on this blog you will find a group of people commenting at that time in very fundamentally sound and edifying ways. It was a very spiritually exciting time for me. When the enemy would attack, everyone would come to the battle armored up and things got interesting. However, through many of those “encounters” it became apparent that God was doing something through them….
He was revealing to us the costliness of following Jesus. During those times I lost friendships and even had some family members distance themselves from me. This is is notwithstanding the outright hostility I and many of my friends have experienced from those who view our obedience to God as legalism. Their view is that relationships take priority over obedience to God.
As many of you know, my favorite book outside of the Bible is John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. Bunyan, a Puritan, spent seven years in prison because he was a preacher, but a nonconformist in the eyes of the Anglican Church. He preached the pure gospel unencumbered by the empty religiosity of The Church of England at that time. However, God used this persecution in the man Bunyan. When he came out of prison for the last time, he had with him the manuscript for The Pilgrim’s Progress ready for a publisher. God uses suffering to prune his people. We are the clay. He is the potter.