The Lord Jesus hoped in God from the time of His birth. Some of us may learn to hope in God late in our lifetime. But hope in God saves us. As long as we are alive on the earth we know God loves us and is providing an opportunity for us to grow in the knowledge of the holy One.

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. (Psalms 22:14-16)

We shall never experience the agony the Lord suffered. We are not strong enough for such tormenting oppression. But if we have been called to rule with Christ we will share His suffering according to our measure. It is only as we suffer with Christ that we can rule with Him, because it is through our suffering on the earth that we gain the necessary knowledge of the Lord.

The majestic Christ, the Commander in Chief of the sons of God, went before us. He endured pain that we never could bear. But each of us must share Christ's suffering. As we do, we learn the trustworthiness of God's Word as He also did. We learn obedience to the Father as He also did. We learn humility to God as He also did.

We are able to learn these lessons because His Life is in us. The Gold of His Divine Nature is given to us. Then it is hammered into shape, like the Lampstand of the Tabernacle of the Congregation, by the pressures that only life on earth can put on us.

Were it possible to learn faith, trust, and hope in the faithfulness of God's Word, the absolute conversion of our will from self-will to rest in God's will, humility, total dependence on the Lord, and joyous obedience to the Lord, while dwelling in the spirit realm, there would have been no area of personality in which the Lord could have been made perfect. But only in the valley of the shadow of death that the world is could He, and we, gain these aspects of the knowledge of the Father.

The pressures and problems of life are designed to teach the sons of God to cease seeking their own will, to cease relying on their own wisdom, understanding, knowledge, talents, and strength, and to commit their way to the Lord. The things that come upon us press us until we turn to God, until we learn to lean on the Lord in every matter, great and small.

And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. (Deuteronomy 8:2,3)

To be continued.