This document contains excerpts from books, commentaries, and quotes about suffering and how it can draw us closer to knowing God more intimately. It discusses how suffering was part of Jesus' experience and can be part of our fellowship with Him. While pain is difficult, these sources express that God can use it to mature and strengthen our faith, and that finding purpose and meaning in suffering is part of following Christ.

1. PHILIPPIANS 3:10
March 11, 2012
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH
JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI

2. GOING DEEPER with GOD
CONFERENCE
Led by Dr. Greg Frizzell
Sunday, March 25 &
Monday, March 26

3. *On Sunday, March 25 ALL
ADULTS will meet in
Fellowship Hall East.
*This will take the place of
our Sunday School class on
March 25th at 9 am.

4. Greg Frizzell said on page 73
of his book: How to Develop
a Powerful Prayer Life “that
in 1981, God led him to
begin praying daily through
all nine fruit of the Spirit.

5. To this day, he has never
found anything that comes
close to the power of daily
praying these character
words for his own spiritual
growth.”

6. "Praying For Our Jerusalem"
Acts 1:8
Praying For Our Jerusalem is
a prayer effort by which we
attempt to go into every
home of our church family

7. for the sole purpose of
praying with the people in
that home.
No gimmicks, no signing up
for something, just to pray.
Prayer Warriors will visit in

8. four homes and pray with
our church families from
April 1-30.
*If you know someone
willing to serve as a Prayer
Warrior, who is willing to go

9. into 4 homes during April
1-30 and pray with our
church families, please
call Trish Jenkins at
(601) 949-1941
or e-mail her at:

10. BREATH OF LIFE
A SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS
FOR THOSE WITH A
CHRONIC COUGH
*TIME: 8 AM APRIL 15th
*PLACE: ROOM E423

11. Thank You for Serving
banquet to honor waiters &
waitresses at: The South,
627 East Silas Brown
Jackson, MS 39201
Monday, April 23rd 6-8 pm

12. MARK THE DATE. . .
FRIEND DAY
SUNDAY, APRIL 29th

13. The MacArthur New
Testament Commentary,
Copyright © Moody Press
and John MacArthur, Jr.,
1983-2007.

14. *Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
Bible Commentary
*Barclay's Daily Study Bible
(NT)

15. *J. Vernon McGee's
Thru The Bible
Wiersbe Expository Outlines

16. Philippians 3:10

17. 10“that I may know Him
and the power of His
resurrection and the
fellowship of His sufferings,
being conformed to His
death;” Philippians 3:10

18. “that I may know Him”:
*Personally (intimately)
*Powerfully (resurrection)
*Passionately (sufferings)!

19. It is Christ's resurrection
power that sanctifies us to
defeat temptation & trials,
to lead a holy life, and
to fruitfully proclaim the
Gospel.

20. Because we know Christ and
have had His righteousness
imputed on us, we have
been given the Holy Spirit.
*The same spiritual power
that raised Jesus from the

21. dead now enables us to
accomplish the work God
had sent us to do.
*The resurrection was and is
the greatest display of
Christ's power! (Rom 1:16)

22. Romans 1:16
16 “ For I am not ashamed
of the Gospel, for it is the
power of God for salvation
to everyone who believes,”

23. Acts 1:8
8 “ but you will receive
power when the Holy Spirit
has come upon you; and you
shall be My witnesses both
in Jerusalem, and in all

24. Judea and Samaria, and
even to the remotest part of
the earth.”
Acts 1:8

25. “that I may know Him”:
*Personally (intimately)
*Powerfully (resurrection)
*Passionately (sufferings)!

26. Philippians 3:10 c
“and the fellowship of His
sufferings,”
(know Him passionately).

27. The deepest moments of
spiritual fellowship with the
living Christ are at times of
intense suffering;
suffering drives us to Him.

28. “If thou art willing to suffer
no adversity, how wilt thou
be the friend of Christ?”
Thomas à Kempis

29. “Self pity comes when you
lose the intimacy with
Jesus.”
Stefan Salmonsson

30. Elisabeth Elliot:
“Our vision is so limited we
can hardly imagine a love
that does not show itself in
protection from suffering....
The love of God did not

31. protect His own Son....
He will not necessarily
protect us either - not from
anything it takes to make us
like His Son.
A lot of hammering and

32. chiseling and purifying by
fire will have to go into the
process.”
Elisabeth Elliot
Elisabeth Elliot's Website

33. David Wilkerson:
“Jesus didn't save you so
you could cruise to heaven
in a luxury liner.
He wants you to be useful in
His kingdom!

34. The moment you got saved,
He enrolled you in His
school - the school of
suffering and affliction.”
David Wilkerson
World Challenge,Inc. Online

35. Paul Billheimer:
“All born-again people are in
training for rulership.
Since the supreme law of
that future social order,
called the kingdom of God,

36. is agape love, therefore
their apprenticeship and
training is for the learning of
deep dimensions of this
love.
But deep dimensions of this

37. love are only learned in the
school of suffering.
Purity is one thing, and
maturity is another.
The latter comes only
through years of suffering.

38. If we suffer, we shall also
reign - because where there
is little suffering, there is
little love; no suffering, no
love; no love, no rulership.”
Paul Billheimer

39. “If we suffer, we shall also
reign with Him”
2 Timothy 2:12 KJV

40. Lee Strobel:
"The universe is a soul
making machine, and part
of that process is learning,
maturing, and growing
through difficult and

41. challenging and painful
experiences.
The point of our lives in this
world isn't comfort, but
training and preparation for
eternity." Lee Strobel

42. Joy is not the absence of
suffering.
It is the presence of God.

43. Joni Eareckson Tada
"Programs, systems and
methods sit well in the ivory
towers of monasteries or in
the wooden arms of icons.
Head knowledge comes

44. from the pages of a
theology text. But the
invitation to know God -
truly know Him - is always
an invitation to suffer.
Not to suffer alone, but to

45. suffer with Him."
Joni Eareckson Tada

46. Joni Eareckson Tada:
“Even though I have rough
moments in my wheelchair,
for the most part I consider
my paralysis a gift.
Just as Jesus exchanged the

47. meaning of the Cross from a
symbol of torture to one of
hope and salvation, He gives
me the grace to do the same
with my wheelchair.
If a cross can become a

48. blessing, so can a
wheelchair.
The wheelchair, in a sense,
is behind me now.
The despair is over.
There are now other crosses

49. to bear, other "wheelchairs"
in my life to be exchanged
into gifts.”
Joni Eareckson Tada
Joni and Friends

50. "God loves you enough , trusts
you enough, to let affliction
come into your life to see
whether you will exercise the
muscles of faith while your
physical muscles begin to
atrophy." Rev. John Howe

51. Vance Havner said that we
need:
“to comfort the afflicted &
to afflict the comfortable.”

52. "There are no crown bearers
in heaven that were not
cross bearers on earth."
Spurgeon

53. C. S. Lewis:
“Pain insists upon being
attended to.
God whispers to us in our
pleasures, speaks in our
conscience, but shouts in

54. our pains: it is His
megaphone to rouse a deaf
world.”
C. S. Lewis

55. Our problems are
opportunities to discover
God’s solutions.
Unknown

56. “You may never know that
Jesus is all you need, until
Jesus is all you have.”
Corrie Ten Boom

57. Sadhu Sundar Singh:
“Should pain and suffering,
sorrow, and grief, rise up
like clouds and overshadow
for a time the Sun of
Righteousness and hide Him

58. from your view, do not be
dismayed, for in the end this
cloud of woe will descend as
showers of blessing on your
head, and the Sun of
Righteousness rise upon you

59. to set no more for ever.”
Sadhu Sundar Singh
Short Biography
Malachi 4:2

60. C. S. Lewis:
“The great thing with
unhappy times is to take
them bit by bit, hour by
hour, like an illness.
It is seldom the present, the

61. exact present, that is
unbearable.”
C. S. Lewis

62. “God never gives strength
for tomorrow, or for the
next hour, but only for the
strain of the minute.”
Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest

63. Walter A. Maier:
“This is the purpose of pain
for the redeemed: it is one
of your Father's ways of
speaking to you; it is the
evidence of His limitless

64. love, by which He would
draw you farther from evil
and closer to Him, the divine
remedy which can cure you
of pride and help you lean
more trustingly on the

65. Lord.”
Walter A. Maier

66. Peter Marshall:
“It is a fact of Christian
experience that life is a
series of troughs and peaks.
In His efforts to get
permanent possession of a

67. soul, God relies on the
troughs more than the
peaks. And some of his
special favourites have gone
through longer and deeper
troughs than anyone else.”

68. Sadhu Sundar Singh:
“During an earthquake it
sometimes happens that
fresh springs break out in
dry places with water which
quickens the land so that

69. plants can grow. In the same
way the shattering
experiences of suffering can
cause the living water to
well up in a human heart.”
Sadhu Sundar Singh

70. Brother Lawrence:
“The sorest afflictions never
appear intolerable, except
when we see them in the
wrong light: when we see
them in the hand of God,

71. Who dispenses them; when
we know that it is our loving
Father Who abases and
distresses us; our sufferings
will lose their bitterness and
become even a matter of

72. consolation.”
Brother Lawrence

73. Billy Graham:
“Even if we may not always
understand why God allows
certain things to happen to
us, we can know He is able
to bring good out of evil,

74. and triumph out of
suffering.”
Billy Graham
Billy Graham Organization

75. Peter Kreeft:
“The greatest Christians in
history seem to say that
their sufferings ended up
bringing them the closest to
God - so this is the best

76. thing that could happen, not
the worst.”
Peter Kreeft
Website