How did Jesus expect His disciples to react under persecution? (In Matthew 5:12 He said), “Rejoice and be glad!” We are not to retaliate like an unbeliever, nor sulk like a child, nor lick our wound in self-pity like a dog, nor just grin a bear it like a Stoic, still less pretend we enjoy it like a masochist. What then? We are to rejoice as a Christian should and even “leap for joy” (Lk. 6:23).
– John Stott –
from The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, IVP, 1978, p. 52.
The apostles went away rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Christ, that they were graced so far as to be disgraced for the name of Christ!
– Thomas Watson –
1600s Puritan
The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.
– Charles Spurgeon –
We can stand affliction better than we can prosperity, for in prosperity we forget God.
– DL Moody –
Unwillingness to accept God’s “way of escape” from temptation frightens me what a rebel yet resides within.
– Jim Elliot –
Pray God to send a few men with what the Americans call “grit” in them; men, who: when they know a thing to be right, will not turn away or aside, or stop; men who will persevere all the more because there are difficulties to meet or foes to encounter; who stand all the more true to their Master because they are opposed; who, the more they are thrust into the fire, the hotter they become; who, just like the bow, the further the string is drawn the more powerfully it sends forth its arrows, and so the more they are trodden upon, the more mighty will they become in the cause of truth against error.
– Charles Spurgeon –
But if the path we tread be rough and lowly; it is that in which our great Exemplar has gone before. Going down into the valley of humiliation we walk in His footsteps.
– John Dawson –
from The Saviour in the Workshop
It is always unpleasant to be spoken against, and forsaken, and lied about, and to stand alone. But there is no help for it. The cup which our Master drank must be drunk by His disciples.
– JC Ryle –
from his book Holiness
Have courage then: make a virtue of necessity: ask of God, not deliverance from your pains, but strength to bear resolutely, for the love of Him, all that He should please, and as long as He shall please.
– Brother Lawrence –
from The Practice of the Presence of God