Suffering holds a significant place in the Christian journey, as it is through such trials that we are called to emulate Jesus Christ. God has summoned us to follow Christ's example of doing good, even when it results in suffering due to the world's opposition. This suffering, though often seeming unjust, is a requirement for those called by God, as we must bear the hardships that come from righteousness. Christ suffered for us, and we are to arm ourselves with the same resolve, prioritizing the Father's will above all, even if it leads to pain. If we endure suffering while pursuing His will, we share in the fellowship of Christ's own trials. Suffering also serves as a means to turn away from sin, revealing where God's perfect law of love has been broken, and thus acts as a profound teacher in understanding how He desires us to live. Even when suffering appears undeserved or unrelated to our actions, we must commit ourselves to Him who judges righteously. Trusting in His purpose, we can believe that such trials will yield good, perhaps teaching us aspects of His way, deepening our connection with our Savior, or fostering empathy for others. Suffering may test our trust in Him or keep us humble and submissive to His will. Approaching it with faith, we can be confident that God will strengthen us and bring forth good fruit from our adversity, including a deep aversion to sin, indelibly writing His law on our hearts as part of the New Covenant. God remains faithful in our trials, ensuring that we are not tested beyond what we can endure. He either fortifies us to withstand the adversity or provides a way of escape. With faith, we can rely on His intervention. Moreover, maintaining a long-range perspective helps us see that our current afflictions are temporary, preparing us for an eternal glory far surpassing our present struggles. Though we may suffer, even unjustly at times, these experiences serve the ultimate purpose of shaping us into glorified members of God's family.

Perfection is the goal of the Christian life, and reaching it requires enduring some hardship. Hebrews 6:1 urges believers to "go on to perfection," and the Greek behind "let us go on" carries the sense of bearing a burden, enduring the rigor of a thing, and patiently bearing one's conduct. Jesus says that he who endures to the end shall be saved (Matthew 24:13), so the road to perfection involves some suffering. Christ Himself walked this road, for God made the captain of our salvation perfect through sufferings (Hebrews 2:10; 5:8-9), and believers follow His example. Paul likewise pressed toward the goal, counting all things loss to know Christ (Philippians 3:8-14). What believers are perfected in is love. God is love, and He is shaping and molding His people into the likeness of His Son, changing human nature, full of lusts and sin, into His divine nature. Keeping His commandments is the way the love of God is perfected in a person (I John 2:3-5). When Christ returns, the converted will be like Him (I John 3:2), perfected in love and given incorruptible bodies. Then perfect love will not allow them to sin, just as God does not sin. This is the meaning of eating unleavened bread for seven days, since seven symbolizes perfection. It is a reminder that believers are to become unleavened, purified, and perfected, as Christ commanded: "You shall be perfect in love, just as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).

The subject of suffering, though unpleasant to contemplate or experience, is a common theme in the gospels and epistles. Peter declares that Christians are called to suffer, an aspect of our calling that, while far from enjoyable, remains part of the present order. Responding to God does not remove all suffering, but it transforms the reason for it and what can be accomplished through it. The Bible reveals that the epitome of suffering is found in Jesus Christ, whose experience was supreme in scope and intensity. Hebrews 2:9-10 provides insight into the purpose and effects of His suffering, offering a starting point to understand this profound mystery. Hebrews paints a poignant picture of Jesus offering prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears, pouring out His mind and heart to the One who had the power to help. His beseeching ran the gamut of logic and emotion, asking and humbly pleading with a depth none of us can fully grasp. Jesus endured intense suffering in anticipation of even greater suffering to come. Though He cried out to the Father, who could save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, the Father deemed it fitting that the suffering and death take place. Despite His power to intervene, the Father did not prevent Jesus from dying, as His death was necessary. Yet, in another sense, the Father saved Him from eternal death by resurrecting Him, not leaving Him in the grave or in a state of death.

Perfection is not easy or instant; it is learned through endurance and suffering. Paul compares immature believers to babies who grow discouraged and quit when the going gets tough, and a sure sign of approaching maturity is endurance. This endurance is not passive waiting but diligent effort to become complete, following those who endured great trials. Peter warns that believers will suffer during the perfecting process, and God Himself perfects, establishes and strengthens them through it. Christ is the pattern: He was made perfect through sufferings and learned obedience by the things He suffered, so His followers cannot expect to escape what He endured. The suffering is also relational. Those who reach a measure of spiritual maturity will constantly face the arrows of jealous people who compare themselves among themselves. Job, whom God Himself called perfect, was turned on bitterly by his friends and even his wife when they thought they saw imperfection, and Christ, the paragon of perfection, was despised more than any man. Perfection means maturity and completeness, and it grows in this life through trials, though it is finished only when human nature is changed. Those who press on to it will never be cast out of their eternal inheritance.

Trials are gifts from God that carry the elect toward glory, so what looks like the end of life is the means by which God saves it. Lazarus's sickness was "not unto death, but for the glory of God," and those who believe see God's glory through it. Paul's thorn in the flesh kept him humble and dependent, and God's answer, "My strength is made perfect in weakness," shows that the weakness we live through is what makes us strong by His grace. Israel's forty years of manna were a continual test to humble them and "do you good in the end," teaching them to live by every word of God; they complained because they saw only deprivation. Those who suffer with Christ will be glorified with Christ, and the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed. God's chastening proves sonship, so the trials themselves mark legitimate heirs and are symbols of victory already won in faith. Like Major de Seversky, whose lost leg awakened dormant powers and became a distinction rather than a handicap, the called should look ahead in faith, not just back in hindsight. They should see every trial, great or small, even to death, as God's work refining them, and then use what they have learned to serve God and others, following Christ's example in suffering.