The Sacrament of the Saint
Let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing. 1 Peter 4:19To choose to suffer means that there is something wrong; to choose
God’s Will even if it means suffering is a very different thing. No
healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he chooses God’s will, as Jesus
did, whether it means suffering or not. No saint dare interfere with
the discipline of suffering in another saint.The saint who satisfies the heart of Jesus will make other saints
strong and mature for God. The people who do us good are never those
who sympathize with us, they always hinder, because sympathy
enervates. No one understands a saint but the saint who is nearest to
the Saviour. If we accept the sympathy of a saint, the reflex feeling
is – Well, God is dealing hardly with me. That is why Jesus said
self-pity was of the devil (see Matt. 16:23). Be merciful to God’s
reputation. It is easy to blacken God’s character because God never
answers back, He never vindicates Himself. Beware of the thought that
Jesus needed sympathy in His earthly life; He refused sympathy from
man because He knew far too wisely that no one on earth understood
what He was after. He took sympathy from His Father only, and from
the angels in heaven. (Cf. Luke 15:10.)Notice God’s unutterable waste of saints, according to the judgment
of the world. God plants His saints in the most useless places. We
say – God intends me to be here because I am so useful. Jesus never
estimated His life along the line of the greatest use. God puts His
saints where they will glorify Him, and we are no judges at all of
where that is.