Compare your life before your suffering and after your suffering. You may notice an increase in godliness, in faith, in peace, in compassion. Tribulation produces patience. Patience is one of the principal characteristics of the Kingdom of God. Or, if you have blamed people or circumstances for your suffering you may have become bitter.

The cross we carry teaches us to wait patiently for the Lord. Those who are impatient seek to avoid the cross. They want to have their desires fulfilled now. The "faith" teachers promise instant gratification by faith. The way of impatience and grasping is the way of Satan. The way of cross-carrying obedience and patience is the way of God—the way of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Wait patiently on the Lord. Pray fervently. Ask God to deliver you according to His holy will. As much as you are able, refrain from complaining and blaming people for your discomfort. Do not become angry or impatient with God. Jesus will pray for you that your faith does not fail.

Remember this: the day will come when your warfare has been accomplished, your iniquity pardoned. The day will arrive when God says, "Enough." The day will come when your cross will be lifted from your shoulder and you will enter green pastures. Peace and righteousness in the Presence of the Lord will be your portion.

The brush of the most gifted artist, the pen of the most talented writer, could never portray the glory that will be given to the believer who keeps plodding ahead faithfully through the flames and floods that are sent to purify the Wife of the Lamb. These troubles help her wash her robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb. The overcomer inherits all things, and God is his God, and he is God's son.

When the three Hebrew children came forth from the furnace, only their bonds were destroyed. The same is true of the members of the Wife of the Lamb.

The Union Stage

So far we have discussed the formation stage and the reconciliation stage of the marriage of the Lamb. In the formation stage the Substance of Christ is given us through the Spirit and we pass through repeated deaths and resurrections until our first personality passes away and in its place stands a new creation, a life-giving spirit (I Corinthians 15:45). This is "Christ in us" in the sense of being a transformation of what we ourselves are. It is a recreation of our personality from a dead soul into a life-giving spirit. Christ is a life-giving Spirit and He must be wed to what is like Himself in Substance and Nature.

Eve was created as the completion of Adam. She was created as his flesh and bone. No other destiny was available to her. We are being created as the completion of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are being created from His body and blood. We can never experience that for which we have been created until we have been joined eternally to the Lord Jesus.

To be continued.