God sends into the world His Son, the Christ, and tells everyone they must believe in this Christ, this beloved Son. The Christ was taught by God, taught a way of an essential combination of obeying and of suffering. We can live innocently filling our time with normal things, a bit of this, a bit of that. Then we hear or remember there are right things too but as soon as we set out to do these things taught by Christ we find we are quickly joined by something to which Christ was no stranger: Suffering. Obedience to Christ is a magnet to suffering. We gather our pennies and determine to discretely give them to the poor and suddenly adversity dogs our heals. This is the way: The way Christ walked as well as taught. Walks as well as teaches. Worship by the Spirit and persecution lies in wait. No separating of obedience and suffering is possible because God commissioned both. Embrace the inevitability of suffering as you resolve to walk increasingly in obedience and let Christ be the Saviour and the Lord that God has made Him to keep you on that path. I will too and we will have fellowship in this Way.
