Writings by Barri Cae Mallin

The School of Affliction

Monday 06 September 2004 - 12:24:27

Click on any internet site, and you are sure to get a pop-up or advertisement touting this online degree or that 'easy' university diploma. One need only to peruse any denominational magazine and see ads for conferences, prayer schools, healing rooms, prophetic conferences, deliverance retreats and so on. I have an idea for a school, it is a grand idea and one that is very 'godly'. Yet I know that few will sign up for it. I would not want to sign up for it.

It is called the School of Affliction.

One of the most difficult verses in all of scripture for me is Colossians 1:24:
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf
of His body (which is the church) in filling up that which is lacking in Messiah's afflictions.

This is a very hard statement for me to grasp, accept and embrace, for I do not like to suffer. But I must.

For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh (2 Corin. 4. 11). Soldiers cannot truly be trained unless they are in war. We are trained for war by fighting battles, and this involves suffering and facing the possibility of death.

And if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Messiah, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him (Rom 8:17). My flesh wants to be glorified with Him and skip the suffering. Yet as an heir of God, and fellow-heir with Jesus, I must endure hardship. I must encounter suffering.

For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things , and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings (Heb. 2:10)...because although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. (Heb. 5:8).

In my comfortable place of worship, I can sing with the throngs, "I want to be more like You, Jesus, I want to be more like You..." But do I truly mean it? Do I truly understand that to be more like Him, I must be willing to go to the School of Afflictions, and endure the tests that will require suffering so that I may learn obedience?

Jesus was mocked (Matt. 27:29), He was insulted (Matt. 27:39). Were those 'easy sufferings' in comparison to His crucifixion?

Mark 14:36 exemplifies Yeshua Jesus' deep travail:
and He was saying, "Abba! Father!
All things are possible for Thee;
remove this cup from Me;

yet not what I will be what Thou wilt.

Although we may pray for deliverance from the test or trial, it is often the Father's will that we remain in the trial, for our faith to be tested and purified. "The cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?" John 18:11. Even Jesus realized that He must go to the cross. His travail in Gethsemane prepared Him for Calvary.

Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. Heb. 5:8

With Messiah in the School of Affliction is a hard course to pass. However, our God does not grade on the curve. He graces by the cross. Through the power of the Spirit, He undergirds youand me, and He equips us to endure and pass the test, He enables us to endure.

Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Messiah Yeshua Jesus from all eternity. 2 Tim 1:8-9

For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory
far beyond all comparison,
while we look not at the things which are seen,
for the things which are seen are temporal,
but the things which are not seen are eternal....2 Corin 4:17-18

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. Ps. 34:19.

Copyright © Barri Cae Mallin.