He Actually Chooses Affliction!

Monday is the day where I like to leave you with some devotional inspiration.  Today's thought comes from the website Grace Gems.  Read on and be inspired!

He actually chooses affliction!

(J.C. Ryle, "Faith's Choice!" 1879)

"By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin." Hebrews 11:24-25

Is there any cross in your Christianity?

There is a common worldly kind of Christianity in this day, which many have--a cheap Christianity . . .
   which offends nobody,
   which requires no sacrifice,
   which costs nothing--and is worth nothing!

But if you really are in earnest about your soul,
if your religion is something more than a mere fashionable Sunday cloak,
if you are determined to live by the Bible,
if you are resolved to be a New Testament Christian--
then you will soon find that you must carry a cross. You must endure hard things; you must suffer in behalf of your soul, as Moses did--or you cannot be saved.

The offense of the cross is not ceased!

God's true people are still a despised little flock.

True evangelical religion still brings with it reproach and scorn.

A real servant of God will still be thought an enthusiast and a fool by many.

If there is no cross--there will be no crown!

Moses left the ease and comfort of Pharaoh's court--and openly took part with the despised children of Israel. In fact, if ever a man seemed to be choosing pain, trials, poverty, distress, anxiety, perhaps even death, with his eyes open--Moses was that man!

Let us think how astonishing was this choice.

Flesh and blood naturally shrink from pain. We draw back by a kind of instinct from suffering, and avoid it if we can. If two courses of action are set before us, which both seem right--we take that which is the least disagreeable to flesh and blood.

But look here! Here is a man of like passions with ourselves, and he actually chooses affliction! Moses saw the cup of suffering that was before him if he left Pharaoh's court--and he chose it, preferred it, and took it up!

Faith told Moses that affliction and suffering are not real evils. They are . . .
  the school of God, in which He trains the children of grace for glory;
  the medicines, which are needful to purify our corrupt hearts;
  the furnace, which must burn away our dross;
  the knife, which must cut the ties which bind us to the world.