It’s easy for Christians to learn the wrong lesson when suffering comes into our lives. Perhaps it’s because we’ve heard the health-and-wealth preachers telling us that God wants us to be happy and prosperous in this life. Perhaps it’s because we’ve listened to Job’s friends, who assumed that suffering only happens to punish people for wrongdoing. Or perhaps it’s because, when we began following Christ, we made a tacit bargain with Him – “I’ll follow You if You keep me and my loved ones safe or healthy or comfortable.” And when suffering comes into our lives, we somehow imagine that God has let us down.

This was frankly the same error Peter and the rest of the disciples made on the night Jesus was arrested. They couldn’t understand how their Messiah being humiliated and beaten and crucified could be part of God’s plan. And they certainly didn’t want any part of the suffering and death that face Him. But Jesus showed them, and us too, that in a sinful world, those who seek to do what God wants will inevitably suffer. In fact, in His resurrection, Jesus shows us that true victory only comes through suffering, not by avoiding it.

So Peter, who would eventually choose to die rather than to deny Jesus, makes it plain. Jesus certainly didn’t deserve any of the ill treatment He received, and yet He endured the worst sort of suffering for us, dying so that we might be forgiven and freed from the power of sin and death. So, we shouldn’t be surprised if suffering is also part of God’s plan for us, not only to make us stronger, but to reveal the character of Christ in us. For there is a very real sense in which when we suffer because we’re trying to follow Jesus, when people take advantage of us or look down on us or call us names – that’s when we are following Jesus most closely. That’s when we are nearest to Him.

18 Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust.
19 For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.
20 For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.
21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.
22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.
23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.