If you are really dead in earnest about partaking of the life of Jesus, God will allow a thousand-and-one things to happen to you, in order to deliver you from the love of material things, from seeking the honour of men, from self-pity and many other un-Christlike attitudes.
He won’t compel you to go that way if you don’t want to. If you are content to live the substandard, defeated life that most believers around you live, He will leave you alone.
But if you are thirsting for God’s best, He will deal with you ruthlessly, cutting out the cancers that are ruining you and destroying the idols that corrupt you. He will allow you to suffer pain, disappointment, loss, shattered hopes, humiliation, unjust criticism etc., in order to bring you to that place of stability – where you can’t be shaken any more.
Then it won’t make any difference to you thereafter, whether you are rich or poor, criticised or praised, honoured or dishonoured. Having gone down into the death of Christ to everything of this world, you would have partaken of the life of Jesus that causes you to walk like a king on this earth.
Do you want such a life? Read on…
