Success Is… Power and Participation

Paul made it clear that, for him, to know Jesus meant to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His suffering (Philippians 3:10). The heart of Paul’s message was that something wondrous had happened: Jesus rose from the dead, proving he was the Son of God and capable of supernatural acts. Knowing Jesus means knowing someone with miraculous resurrection power. At the same time, it means knowing someone who experienced suffering, demonstrated by His crucifixion. His power and His suffering are both true and necessary.

When we focus only on resurrection power, emphasising that God is capable of delivering miraculous healing from pain and sickness, we risk trying to harness God’s supernatural power for our own ends – our own healing – and we fail to serve vulnerable, hurting people or do anything about the systems that perpetuate their pain. On the other hand, we can get hung up on participatory suffering. In our quest to side with the marginalised and oppressed, we forget that God has resurrection power and that He renders us unable to offer the kind of hope people need to persevere in difficult environments.

Thankfully, while we risk emphasising participatory suffering over resurrection power and vice versa, we don’t have to pick a side. As we grow closer to Jesus, He aligns our perspectives with His more and more. We become more aware of the pain-free realities of heaven, and we become more aware of the pain-ridden realities of this world. Seeing as Jesus sees transforms our hope and our help. In John 10:10, Jesus says He came to bring us life in all its fullness. In the very next verse, He talks about laying down His life for others. Abundance is accessed through sacrifice. We’re called to live for others, not just for ourselves. In this way, as Paul tells us, we ‘become like Jesus in His death.' Take a moment to imagine what a commitment to live near the marginalised and oppressed would look like, lived out through your church community. Equally, what evidence is there of God’s resurrection power at work among you?

The paradox of Kingdom success is that it’s hidden in the most unsuccessful-looking things: laying down your life leads to fullness; becoming like Jesus in His death leads to resurrection; participation in the example of Jesus’ suffering leads to power. May your (un)success astonish a watching world as you surrender to God and learn to live in both resurrection power and participatory suffering.

This reading plan content has been taken from the How To Be Unsuccessful series by 24-7 Prayer. To run this series with your community and find out more, please visit 24-7 Prayer.com