Perseverance Devotional Guest Post with Josh Phillips

God’s people need God’s people.

As a family of God in my small town we live in community. An open and honest family who shares struggles and brokenness and rest in the hope of Jesus. We live openly, our doors and our lives and we have all things in common.

Last year we “planted” a church with two other families who were seeking Jesus. Things have gone well and God is truly blessing His work. Many new families have come into covenant fellowship alongside of us and last year was beautiful.

The first service of the new year God laid a word on my heart to share with the families in our body. The word was cut and dry and fell among good soil. This was the word, “Suffer Well.” Suffer well knowing we serve a God full of grace and truth Who loves us and gave Himself for us and is working for us an eternal weight of glory in our suffering. "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:17-18 17)

At the end of January we received the wonderful news that our lead pastor and his wife were expecting! We were all excited and worshiped God for this gift.

A month later we received the news, they lost their baby. Heartbroken and sorrowful we did only what we knew to do and that was to be there for them, to walk with them in this difficult time. A couple days after the bad news, my family took them dinner, planning to drop it off and leave to give them some space to wrestle through these things. They asked us to stay and my brother reminded me, “The message you spoke to us the first of the year, suffer well, I don’t know how we could do it without the body.” And he was right.

God didn’t create us to be lone rangers in the mission to make disciples of all nations. He blessed us with a family to walk with, in our weakest times and the most joyous times, family to encourage us and to rebuke us, to lift us up and to keep us grounded in reality. God’s people need God’s people.

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