Fellowship In Suffering

By Tammy Lacock

In this week’s podcast, Warren really dissects the Apostle Paul’s words in Philippians 3:10 (KJV):

“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his suffering, being made comformable unto his death.”

Warren reminds us here that Paul has had a radical mind change; and this is a mind change that we all need if we are to live as true Christians, Christ-persons. Paul, in his epistles, prays that we, too, will have this mind change, which can only be revealed by the Holy Spirit.

It was revealed to Paul that Christ is alive and well, alive and well in him and through him. The real Jesus now lives in us. Paul’s only desire was to know this Christ who lived in him. In fact, Paul welcomed suffering if it meant knowing Christ in that suffering. He knew it was only through Christ’s suffering and death that he was made alive. That he was made new. He knew that God works out of death.

Warren explains it simply: The Devil takes what is alive and destroys it, yet God takes what is dead and brings it to life. Through Christ’s death, we died too. And in His resurrection, we were brought to life, a new life in Him. We died to our old lives and arose to a completely brand-new life in Christ. Nothing else but his new life in Christ mattered to Paul. His mind was changed, and it was made up!

“Being made conformable into His death," Paul was ready to become nothing so that Christ would be his all, his only life. He “suffered the loss of all things” to win Christ. He wanted to suffer as Christ suffered, and he wanted to die as Christ died, in absolute obedience to God, so that in his suffering and death, he would know and love Christ more.

Paul was ready to die, but he wanted death only to come when he had done all he could in his love affair with Christ. His only desire was to know and love Christ, and he knew that meant he would need to give up his own life, his own identity, his own goals and ideas. He’d need to die to his life, make himself "a living sacrifice" (Rom. 12:1) to give himself to Christ within to live through him.

Paul’s epistles help us understand who we are now in Christ. We are one with Him. We are married to Him. It’s a love affair. Paul challenges us to a deeper relationship with Christ, a fellowship with Him that blossoms out of our sufferings and an intimacy, a new life, that can only come when we suffer the loss of all things and give ourselves completely over to Him.

He states this clearly in Galatians 2:20 (KJV), “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”