Worthy to Suffer
So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name. (Acts 5:41) Recently this idea of rejoicing because one is considered worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus came to my attention again. I distinctly remember feeling very uncomfortable with this concept many times whenever I read this or heard it discussed and it still is not well resolved in my mind so I feel I need to do some intentional digging into the Word to unpack this for my own peace of mind. What I think might be disturbing me the most about this is that it seems that whenever people talk about this it seems to often be couched in a subtle assumption that somehow 'suffering for Jesus' in some way creates 'brownie points' with God, creating some sort of merit that may count toward a better position in heaven or some other such desirable result. Yet anything that smacks of earning favor with God or contributing to