Suffering Heirs of God

Church family: You are an heir! Have you ever inherited anything? It goes like this. If you are an heir to your father’s estate and that consisted of a stamp collection, his old 1971 Chevrolet truck, 50 acres of land and a house, then that is what you would inherit. Everything your father owned is yours. Now take that same thinking and apply it to the promise that you are an heir of God (Rom. 8:16-17). This means that everything that God owns is yours and you get God Himself, because God does not die in order for you to get His estate.

Think about the love that flows from God wanting us to know that we are an heir of everything the He owns and a co-heir with Christ. Today in America the norm is to not let heirs know what they will inherit. But God wants His children to know without a shadow of doubt that they are His heir. We get God today. We get an eternal home without death, sadness, mourning, or pain. We get all things that are God’s. We get ministering spirits to help us today. We get a strong refuge today filled with eternal hope. We get eternal life. We get a guarantee that we will be perfected. We get perfect fellowship as brothers and sisters in Christ. We get perfect communion with the Lord. We are incapable, while on this earth, to understand the fulness of our inheritance but we are called to ponder the depths of this promise. There are hundreds of other descriptions throughout scripture. Go and find out about your inheritance.

But wait, our heirship of God’s estate comes with a condition. We must suffer as Christ suffered (Rom. 8:17-18). Christ is an heir of God and He was also an heir of mocking, scourging, shame and the cross. We being joint heirs with Christ have the same inheritance of suffering and affliction. God has determined that the only way to receive the totality of our inheritance is through suffering. A life of no suffering leads to no inheritance. This is the opposite message of the prosperity gospel of today.

What does the suffering look like? It is the everyday conflict, struggles, and hardships that you encounter on this earth while living a steadfast life pursuing righteousness. And it is also ostracism, rejection and martyrdom. For a little while on this earth we are promised that we will be grieved by various trials to test the genuineness of our faith so that we will receive our imperishable inheritance (1 Peter 1:3-8). There is no suffering-free access. But God has great purpose in the suffering. God is removing everything that we depend on for our happiness other than Himself. He wants us to completely trust Him as He prepares us to receive our eternal inheritance. While in the suffering , listen to the Holy Spirit as He reminds you that you are a child of God with an imperishable inheritance. That is His job.

Let us walk through this suffering life on earth as if we are on our way to receive our eternal inheritance.

See you Sunday, as fellow heirs with Christ, Steve