Patterned lives

Such sufferings are not meaningless but are part of God’s providential plan that Christians should pattern in their lives after the sacrificial model of Jesus. (Beale, Revelation p.389)

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He delivers the afflicted by their affliction

Behold, God is mighty, and does not despise any;
he is mighty in strength of understanding.

He does not keep the wicked alive,
But gives the afflicted their right.

He does not withdraw his eyes from the righteous,
but with kings on the throne he sets them forever, and they are exalted.

And if they are bound in chains and caught in the cords of affliction,
then he declares to them their work and their transgressions, that they are behaving arrogantly.

He opens their ears to instruction and commands that they return from iniquity.
If they listen and serve him, they complete their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasantness.
But if they do not listen, they perish by the sword and die without knowledge.

The godless in heart cherish anger; they do not cry for help when he binds them.
They die in youth, and their life ends among the cult prostitutes.

He delivers the afflicted by their affliction
and opens their ear by adversity.

He also allured you out of distress into a broad place where there was no cramping,
and what was set on your table was full of fatness.

(Job 36:5-16)

Blows that wound cleanse away evil; strokes make clean the innermost parts.

(Proverbs 20:30)

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