Joy in the Suffering

During Jesus' ministry we can read through the gospels and see how much Jesus suffered by the oppression of those who hardened their hearts to His message of salvation. Jesus knew what His mission was and was willing to endure all suffering for sake of rescuing us from the kingdom of darkness. We read in Philippians 2 that Jesus counted it joy to suffer for our sake and He asks us to have the same attitude that He did. 

1 Peter 2:21 says “For you have been called for this purpose, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you would follow in His steps,” 

This week we see that as the Apostles and the early church believers submitted to the leading of the Holy Spirt and were obedient to the calling Jesus charged them with, regardless of the outcome. Arrested and beaten for speaking truth and charged to stop spreading the Gospel, they stayed true to their mission by following the commands of God rather than men and like Jesus, they counted it joy.