"Called to Suffer" The Apostle Paul understood persecution for he was on both sides of the sword.  Before his conversion to Christ on the Damascus Road, Paul (then called Saul) wielded the sword, imprisoning and killing the followers of Jesus, all the while believing that he was doing God a service.  The Lord told Ananias, who was afraid to pray for Paul because he persecuted the Christians, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before the Gentiles, kings and the children of Israel.  For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake”  (Acts 9: 15-16).  Paul listed his sufferings when he declared his apostleship to the Corinthian church: “Are they ministers?...I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes (beatings) above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often.  From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one.  Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep…in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness…” (2 Corinthians 11: 23-27).  It was this same Paul who wrote: “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.  For the things that are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4: 17-18).  Where did Paul receive such faith and fortitide to call his sufferings “light afflictions” and not become offended with God for allowing such suffering in his life?   Paul encountered the Risen Christ in all of His terrible splendor on the Damascus Road that day and eternity was stamped on his eyeballs.  It was at that appointed time that the old Saul died and the apostle Paul was raised up in the newness of life declaring, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2: 20).  Paul was a dead man, and you cannot kill a dead man.  Again, Paul wrote: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8: 18). Everything that Paul accomplished after his conversion to Christianity-- writing two-thirds of the New Testament, working miracles, preaching to kings,and reaping a multitide of souls for God—was offered up to God to the glory of Jesus.  Paul’s only boast was in the cross of Christ: “But God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6: 14).  Paul knew that suffering was not only something to be endured, but embraced as a privilege from God.  Paul exhorted the afflicted with these words: “Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ…with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of  salvation, and that from God.  For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake…” (Philippians 1: 27-29).  Jesus told His diciples, “A servant is not greater than his master.  If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20).  Paul declared, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” ( 2 Timothy 3: 12).  Persecution seems foreign and outdated to Americans who live in freedom and prosperity, yet our brothers and sisters around the globe are even now suffering imprisonment, torture and death for their uncompromising faith in Jesus Christ.  We are called to pray and minister to those who are oppressed: “Remember the prisoners as if chained with them, and those who are mistreated, since you yourselves are in the body also” (Hebrews 13:3).  “The Voice of the Martyrs” is an international ministry that serves the persecuted church (www.persecution.com).  The saints who lose their lives for the gospel’s sake will obtain a martyr’s crown on the last day, and great will be their reward. “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.  Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you”  --Jesus (Matthew 5: 11-12). “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written, ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’  Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him Who loved us”  (Romans 8: 35-37). “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)