God makes us all perfect through suffering. Even His Son Jesus, who never sinned,
was perfected for purpose through suffering, so He could be a sympathetic High
Priest to His human brothers and sisters. ‘ For we do not have a High Priest who is
unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every
way, just as we are—yet he did not sin’ (Hebrew 4:15).
God repays every suffering of His children, whether in this life or the next eternal
life. If we lose our life we gain it eternally, if we serve Him we are rewarded, we
gain everything back a hundredfold and more! Mark 10:29- 30 “Truly I tell you,”
Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children
or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present
age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and
in the age to come eternal life.” Notice that little phrase – ‘... with persecutions’
Because once again, God is not after our suffering like the pagans: He is after our
hearts, the perfecting of our souls, and advancement of His Kingdom. And He
restores everything we lose, everything we lay down, even our own lives. He
desires ultimately, an abundant and eternal life for all His children.
Thus Jesus could say in John 10:17-18: ‘“ The reason my Father loves me is that I lay
down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my
own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This
command I received from my Father.”’
Jesus laid down His own life freely in obedience to the command He received from
His Father. In His loving pursuit for us fallen mankind, God could not spare His
own Son. If sacrifice was what it would take, then sacrifice He would require of
Jesus. And Jesus, being the perfect, obedient God-Son, said yes and laid down His
life for us. Like Isaac, He did not resist. He was willing to do the will of the Father.
Jesus in these verses says something critical: ‘I lay it down of my own accord. I have
authority to lay it down and ...pick it up again.’ The promise of resurrection was
always there! Jesus knew that, being Himself God. But Isaac did not, yet he still
obeyed. This is the kind of obedience God calls us to in our walk of faith towards
heaven. In the Garden of Gethsemane when the reality of the cross and all it
entailed weighed heavily on Jesus, He agonized before the Father, ‘... If it is