Romans 8:16-18

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed toward us.

There is something very important about what Paul says about suffering that I would like to point out. He says that “we suffer with Him.” This means that when we suffer as we are walking with the Holy Spirit, we are really suffering as Jesus is suffering. I like to think of it this way. The sufferings we have go through, actually belong to Jesus. We are sharing in them because we are with Him.

When we walk in the Spirit, Jesus is really the one who is living His life in us and I believe it works the same way with suffering as it does with everything else. Just as people mistreated Him when He was here, they continue to do so when He does His work through us today. This means that living the Christian life isn’t always happy and fun in the sense that sometimes we go through the suffering that Jesus has to go through.

As children of God, God tells us that we get an inheritance because we are joined to Jesus as Christians but we also must suffer with Him. It is very encouraging to realize that Jesus is feeling the same sufferings that we are, because in reality, we are feeling the suffering He is feeling and someday, it will seem like a very small thing compared to all that He gives us.