Lesson 29: Carrying the Right Marks
Read Galatians 6:1-18 - www.bible.com/bible/59/gal.6
17 From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.
18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.

Paul’s final words in this letter to the Galatian church can be a surprise to us if we do not know what he means.

First, what were the marks of Jesus? They were the marks of the way He was killed – the nails driven through His hands and feet, the sword-wound in His side, and the imprint of the thorny crown they had smashed down on His head. They were the marks of great pain and suffering. Did Paul have these same scars? No. His scars were different, just as Jesus had promised him (see Acts 9:16). We can read a short list of Paul’s sufferings for Christ in 2 Corinthians 11:24-28.

Many Scriptures in the New Testament tell us we need to expect to suffer for Jesus too. Jesus said, in Mark 8:34-38, that anyone who follows Him must take up their cross and follow Him. He continued with the caution that if we try to keep our lives we will lose them, but if we are willing to lose our lives for His sake we will keep them forever. In 2 Corinthians 4:11-18 we read further that the glory He has waiting for each of His children in Heaven so far outweighs anything we might suffer here that the two cannot even be measured on the same scale (like we cannot weigh a planet and a feather on the same scale).


Philippians 2:27-30 tells us that great honor is given to those who suffer for His sake. Jesus said in Matthew 5:10-12 that we should rejoice when we are persecuted for His sake because then this evil world considers us to be the same as Him.

We do not need to worry about how we endure suffering for Him. In the final verse of this book, Paul gives us the answer – the grace of Jesus Christ will be with us. We need never wonder if we are suffering because He has left or forgotten us – His promise is that He never will (Hebrews 13:5). And our suffering will not be limited just to persecution for His sake. Jesus suffered from hunger (Luke 4:2-4), thirst (John 19:28), poverty (Matthew 8:20), loneliness (Matthew 27:46), desertion of His friends (Matthew 26:56), betrayal by close friends (Matthew 26:47-50). In fact, we are told Jesus has endured every kind of pain and temptation we have, so He knows exactly what we go through when we suffer (Hebrews 4:14-16) – He knows just how to help us through our suffering too.

He has done so very much for us, no amount of suffering we have to ever endure here can be too much to show Him how much we love Him. Our suffering is being used by Him every day to bring others to Himself. This earth is just a temporary tent where we work for a little while to build His kingdom – of which we will inherit a share. We never lose sight of our eternal home with Him.

*What has encouraged you most in this study to stay true to Jesus?