Sufficient Grace for Suffering Saints

Happy Thanksgiving🍽 🦃

“But you, Timothy, certainly know what I teach, and how I live, and what my purpose in life is. You know my faith, my patience, my love, and my endurance. You know how much persecution and suffering I have endured. You know all about how I was persecuted in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra—but the Lord rescued me from all of it. Yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.”
‭‭2 Timothy‬ ‭3‬:‭10‬-‭12‬ ‭NLT‬‬

That phrase, “but the Lord rescued me from all of it” refers back to Paul’s persecution and suffering.

Does this mean Christians can expect God to “fix” all their problems? No! Just look at the last sentence above!

Paul went from one crises to the next. He was beaten, shipwrecked, put in prison and who knows what else he suffered? I’m sure he must have had permanent injuries that plagued him for the rest of his life after being beaten to within an inch of his life.

So what did God rescue him from? Up to the time he wrote this God had rescued him from physical death. But if you read more you can see that God rescued him from becoming so discouraged he wanted to quit.

“We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies. Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies.”
‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭4‬:‭7‬-‭11‬ ‭NLT‬‬

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
‭‭II Timothy‬ ‭1‬:‭7‬ ‭NKJV‬‬ (I like the NKJV here because it flows better)

Paul was in a small dark prison cell when he wrote 2 Timothy. Soon after he was killed.
I think it is significant given his history of hardship and where he was currently writing from that he had it firmly in mind that a spirit of fear was not from God. He had learned to recognize what was from God and what wasn’t and this kept him in a place of power, love and a sound mind.

God rescued Paul from all these persecutions and suffering but maybe not so much in the way we Westerners think. God rescued him from letting it all get him down and wanting to quit.

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