- Overcomer Literature Trust
- Swindon
- Wiltshire
TAKE IT PATIENTLY
If, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye shall take it patiently, this is grace with God (1 Peter 2v20).
Even hereunto were ye called. Called out of darkness into marvellous light to ‘shew forth the excellencies of Him who called you (1 Peter 2v9). This is the heavenly calling. To be living revelations of Jesus Christ. To endure grief suffering wrongfully. To ‘do well, suffer for it, and take it patiently. This is grace (v19). This is acceptable with God (v20). This is thank-worthy. Yes, this is the life of Jesus, manifested in our mortal body. This is walking as He walked, so that the Father says ‘Thank you’.
Look at the pattern given us in the Lord from heaven:
1. He did no sin (v22)
Yet He was numbered with the transgressors. He could say to His enemies ‘Many good works have I shewed you from the Father; for which of those works do ye stone Me? (John 10v32). They hated Him without a cause. He endured grief ‘suffering wrongfully’.
2. He had no guile in His mouth (v22)
Never man spake like this man. All bare Him witness, and wondered at the words of grace which proceeded out of His mouth (Luke 4v22). Yet, He ‘suffered wrongfully’.
3. He did not threaten as He suffered (v23)
When He suffered, threatened not. He gave His back to the smiters, He hid not His face from shame and spitting. Holy, harmless and undefiled, He did well, and suffered for it.
He did suffer under the reviling. He did feel the pain of the reproach. He did feel the taunts, and the humiliation laid upon Him. He said ‘Reproach hath broken My heart (Psalm 69v20). He knew that an awful visitation lay before the ones who said, ‘His blood be on us and on our children’, yet He was dumb, He threatened not.
4. He silently committed all to God (v23)
He committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously.
He committed His cause. To Him it was ‘The cup which the Father hath given Me’. ‘Why not rather take wrong?’ said Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians. Why indeed, with such a calling and such a Pattern.
How often we have fled away to some place alone with God to shed bitter tears over some ‘battle of words’ and ‘strife of tongues’ that would have been avoided had we learnt the grace of suffering wrongfully.
How is this grace possible to men and women in this present evil world? Taking heed that we give ‘no occasion’ to suffer rightfully, let us see how clearly the apostle gives us the secret of deliverance from the self-vindication and self-defence so contrary to the Spirit of the Lamb.
Who His own self carried up our sins in His body to the tree, that we, having died, unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed (v24).
Peter knew the power of the cross, even as did his ‘beloved brother Paul’. He had actually been a witness of the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 5v1). How vividly he could depict the Pattern; how his heart must have quivered as he remembered that denial of his Lord in the house of Caiaphas, when the meek and lowly One had been ‘wounded’ by one of His friends. How the tears must have come, as he remembered that all the Master had given him in return, was one look of love; one look. One look that broke his heart. Yes, Peter knew Calvary, and turned from the Pattern to shew the secret of the life of enduring grief, suffering wrongfully, in the words: ‘His own self carried up our sins to the tree that we having died’, with Him who died, might follow His steps.
In the next chapter we see the blessed outcome of a life thus lived. See it in the special case of wives with unbelieving husbands, but surely applicable to every relationship of life. In like manner, ‘ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands’, that they may without the Word be gained by the manner of life (1 Peter 3v1).
In like manner ‘ye sisters, win your brothers’. ‘If I could but get to hear the gospel’ we often hear it said, but Peter tells us the loved ones can be won ‘without the Word’. ‘Won’ by taking patiently all contradiction, all suffering wrongfully. So shall come upon the earthen vessels, the heavenly adornment of a ‘meek and quiet spirit’, in the sight of God of great price.
So may it be for His glory. Amen.