{"id":8102,"date":"2026-08-13T16:10:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T21:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/?p=8102"},"modified":"2026-08-13T16:10:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T21:10:27","slug":"do-you-follow-jesus-the-rest-of-the-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/?p=8102","title":{"rendered":"DO YOU FOLLOW JESUS ? &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; THE REST OF THE STORY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Question:<br>What do punishment, persecution, and sacrifice have in common ?<br>Answer:<br>Suffering<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>PUNISHMENT<br>Suffering, and it&#8217;s your fault<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>PERSECUTION<br>Suffering, and it&#8217;s not your fault<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SACRIFICE<br>Suffering, and it&#8217;s your choice<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>More on sacrifice&#8212;like a foreign word in our everyday lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Suffering by choice, really ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SACRIFICE<br>&#8212; Giving, till it hurts<br>&#8212; Living beyond my comfort level<br>&#8212; Suffering<br>&#8212; Self-dying<br>&#8212; Self-denying<br>&#8212; Self-drowning<br>&#8212; Self-humbling<br>&#8212; Self-crucifying<br>&#8212; Self-surrendering to follow Jesus, with consequences for saying His name<br>&#8212; Self-acceptance of identity &#8220;in the fellowship of His suffering&#8221;<br>&#8212; Self-application of His promises&#8212;many troubles + deliverance<br>&#8212; Self-contentment, even courage, because Jesus &#8220;overcame the world&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him from them allI.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>PUNISHMENT<br>Suffering, and it&#8217;s your fault<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Jesus actually promised suffering for His followers, and deliverance.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>But He did not promise to save us from all the evil in the world and the consequences of our sins.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>PERSECUTION<br>Suffering, and it&#8217;s not your fault<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Jesus said repeatedly that we are blessed and should rejoice when people do all kinds of bad things to us BECAUSE WE FOLLOW HIM.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>SACRIFICE<br>Suffering, and it&#8217;s your choice<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Jesus called his disciples to leave everything and follow him.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>He told a rich, young man to sell all, give it to the poor, and follow Him (for riches in heaven).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When God told Ananias to baptize Saul (terrorist persecutor), He said, &#8220;I will show him (Paul) how much he must suffer for My Name.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>And that, dear friends, is &#8220;the rest of the story&#8221; if you follow Jesus.<br>Read your Bible ! ! !<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question:What do punishment, persecution, and sacrifice have in common ?Answer:Suffering PUNISHMENTSuffering, and it&#8217;s your fault PERSECUTIONSuffering, and it&#8217;s not your fault SACRIFICESuffering, and it&#8217;s your choice More on sacrifice&#8212;like a foreign word in our everyday lives. Suffering by choice, really ? SACRIFICE&#8212; Giving, till it hurts&#8212; Living beyond my comfort level&#8212; Suffering&#8212; Self-dying&#8212; Self-denying&#8212; Self-drowning&#8212; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2,4,7,9,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational","category-faith_based","category-financial","category-inspire_lifter","category-political-cultural","category-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8102"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8103,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8102\/revisions\/8103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}