Lesson 10: Purpose for suffering – a warning to unbelievers
2 Thessalonians 1:3-8 (ESV)
3 We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.
4 Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.
5 This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering—
6 since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you,
7 and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels
8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

The purpose for our suffering in this lesson should be sobering for us. Our suffering becomes a warning to those who have not believed in Jesus Christ, a warning of suffering they will also endure – except their suffering has no purpose and therefore no final victory if they do not belong to Jesus Christ.


In the above verses, the suffering named is specifically that which is caused by someone else. This should never be cause for delight in us for the purpose of revenge. Jesus Himself did not seek revenge for His death on the cross. Instead, He asked God to forgive those who were killing Him because they didn’t know what they were doing (see Luke 23:34). We should be the same with others who cause us suffering of any kind – whether ridicule, telling lies about us, cheating us – anywhere in our life.

Our desire should always be the same as God’s desire – He is not willing than ANY should perish and suffer eternal damnation (2 Peter 3:9). We should pray that God uses our own suffering as a warning to the other individual to seek Him before it is forever too late. If we truly believe and desire that, we cannot retaliate against them. We forgive and do not become bitter against the one who has caused us to suffer. It is how we become more like Jesus, and through it our faith also grows stronger in Him.

*If your suffering has been caused by someone else, have you forgiven them? God tells us to pray for our enemies, and then He gives us His love for them.
*How could your forgiveness of the person who has caused your suffering be used by God to draw them to Himself?