Crowned With Glory & Honor Sample

The Blessed Persecuted Ones

Jesus wasn’t just giving us comforting words when He said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:10). He was revealing a powerful truth. When you are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, an authority is released into your life—a crown of glory!

Let me say that again. As we suffer for Christ, God releases and manifests a crown of glory in and through our bodies. As we suffer all manner of reviling, accusations, persecutions, and attacks, God releases a greater dimension of His authority into our lives.

This is not something we teach much in the Western churches, but throughout history this has been known. Suffering for Christ produces a glory in and through us.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

—2 Corinthians 4:16-17

Paul—who was beaten repeatedly, imprisoned, reviled, shipwrecked, stoned, whipped, and so much more—called these sufferings light and momentary. How could he make such a statement? What depth of revelation did he have that gave him such a perspective?

We consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting.

—2 Corinthians 4:18, AMPC

Paul’s focus was on the eternal and spiritual, not on the natural. He saw what God was doing through his suffering and rejoiced in it. He saw that through his sufferings for Christ, a crown of glory was being manifested. A new dimension of the manifestation of the glory of God is revealed when God’s people are suffering.

Paul wrote, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). Why could Paul declare that he was strong in the midst of his trial? Because as he suffered for Christ’s sake a new dimension of the crown of glory was manifesting in and through his life. The mystery of the crown of glory is for those who overcome suffering.