Suffering - His Future Glory

An excerpt from our session today:
"When we experience pain or loss, we often ask, 'Why?' We find ourselves desperately seeking purpose. Tell me there is meaning in this. Tell me this happened for a reason. As we look at our present circumstances and examine the past, and we can't see how anything good could come from the pain. This is because the purpose behind our pain is found not in the past or the present, but is His future glory."


"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us." - Romans 8:18

"But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen." - 1 Peter 5:9-11

"But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have sufferend the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." - Philippians 3: 7-11