True Prosperity When You're SufferingSample

Paul and Silas: Praising God in Suffering

Listen to our friend Banele tell Paul and Silas’s story of suffering.

As the good news spread, so did persecution. Jesus warned his followers to be prepared to suffer. He warned them to pick up their cross daily to follow him (Matt 16:24–26). Paul the persecutor, a sincere seeker of God, sought to arrest the men and women who had chosen to follow God through faith in Jesus. Instead, Paul encountered Jesus. He was forever changed (Acts 9:2–5). God sent Ananias to pray for Paul. Through Ananias, God warned Paul from the onset of his new calling and ministry that his life of obedience would entail suffering.

As God had warned, Paul and Silas suffered physical beatings and imprisonment and were confined by wooden stocks on their feet. Their response was to pray and worship God in the depth of the Philippian prison at midnight (Acts 16:22–26). Their response was not a positive declaration about themselves or their future but an appeal and praise to God alone. They found their prosperity not in their circumstances, their resources, or themselves, but in God himself. They knew true prosperity—praising God when everything looks grim.

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If you’d like to read more of Paul and Silas’s story, take a look at Acts 9:1–18 and 16:16–34.