I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it. (Philippians 3:10-11 MSG)
There’s a meme that kept coming up at the beginning of the year. It said, “Calling God to make sure I signed up for the blessed and highly favored package and not the trial and tribulation package.” Sound familiar? I’m sure we’ve all hoped – and even prayed – for God to keep us from going through any more hard times. I know I have.
In fact, there came a time when I shortened today’s passage, which I used to pray in its entirety, to just “I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection.” I’ve had enough of going through the ‘trials and tribulations’ and wanted the ‘blessed and highly favored’ package. And being the gentleman that He is, God gave me exactly that. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that without the difficult times, my faith wasn’t being strengthened. There weren’t many victories to celebrate now.
There’s nothing wrong with being honest with God and ourselves about our human frailty. Even God won’t give us more than we can handle. But Jesus knew that embracing the cross would empower Him to rise again. That is why the devil tried to prevent Him from going to the cross in the first place. And that’s what the enemy still tries to do today. He knows that as we learn to embrace the pain and suffering of the cross, we come out much stronger and victorious. So as we journey to Easter, I’m going to challenge you to embrace the cross, the trials and tribulations, because only then will you discover what it means to be truly blessed and highly favored.
Rising with the Son 