Suffering for the Name

How do you respond to hardships? Do you hide from them? Do you complain about them? Do they break your spirit?

Think about the pains that the disciples of Jesus faced in the early days of the church. After Christ’s resurrection and ascension, the disciples were in a weird spot. God’s Spirit came and empowered them. But they were still a huge minority in Jerusalem. The Jewish leaders still hated them. It was a matter of just months earlier that the Jewish leaders had put Jesus to death. And the men who told others about Jesus faced legitimate persecution.

Acts 5:40-42 – 40 and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41 Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. 42 And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.

This story always amazes me. The disciples took a beating. This is no small thing. They were hit hard. They were left bloody and bruised. There is just no way this was nice at all.

But what did they do? The disciples rejoiced. They praised God. They celebrated. Why did they celebrate? Did they celebrate because God gave them riches and ease? No way. They celebrated because God had counted them as worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus.

We could learn from this, Christian friends. It is an honor to suffer for the name of Jesus. We should not wine and complain when somebody looks down on us. We should not moan and lose courage if someone calls us names on social media, mocks us on a campus, or even tries to change laws to make our lives difficult. Of course we will try to protect the rights of Christians in our nation so that the gospel can be easily spread. But the truth is, we need to stop grumbling if life gets hard. If God allows us to suffer, then we are privileged believers who have been honored to suffer for the name of Jesus. If we do not suffer, we should thank God for his mercy on us.

What suffering have you faced for the gospel? If you are in the U.S., you have not had your house burned down or your family arrested for gospel causes. If you are an American, you probably have not once felt any physical pain, any at all, because you communicated the gospel. I’m pretty sure that the worst things that have ever happened to me for my faith in this country is that I have had a drink thrown on me on the street and been made fun of by family for my commitment to Christ. But neither of those is anything compared to the single beating the disciples took.

Let us be bold. Let us embrace the fact that we might suffer for the gospel. Let us see that, if the Lord allows us to suffer for his name, he is counting us as special. Let us be so confident in the resurrection of Jesus that we willingly face hardships in the here and now for the joys of eternity. May we love the lost enough to keep witnessing. May we love the Lord enough to spread his fame even if it is costly.