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Peter gives his readers an incredible reason to rejoice, even when we’re suffering. Whenever we suffer in obedience to Jesus, we’re sharing in the sufferings of Christ! He puts it this way in 1 Peter 4:13, But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

One modern-day example of this truth is the life of Helen Roseveare. David Helm tells the story in his commentary on 1 Peter. “Helen Roseveare was a Christian British medical doctor who served more than twenty years in Zaire, Africa. In 1964 a revolution overwhelmed the country. She and her coworkers were thrown into five and a half months of unbelievable brutality and torture. For a moment she thought that God had forsaken her, but then she was overwhelmed with a sense of his presence, and she records that it was as if God was saying to her: ‘Twenty years ago you asked me for the privilege of being a missionary, the privilege of being identified with me. This is it. Don’t you want it? This is what it means: These are not your sufferings, they are mine. All I ask of you is the loan of your body.’”[i]

Dear suffering Christian: you can rejoice in your pain, because like Helen Roseveare and the Apostle Peter himself, you’re sharing in the sufferings of Christ.

 

  [i] As told by David R. Helm, 1–2 Peter and Jude, Preaching the Word (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015), 151.