There are sufferings still left for the Church, to be fulfilled in us, but you cannot come to Christ’s sufferings until you have finished with your own. The afflictions of Christ are the afflictions of the kingdom and he is afflicted with us in them. As Isaiah said, “in all their afflictions he was afflicted and the angel of his presence saved them.” In my intercessions I never once thought that he would allow me to suffer anything that he did not suffer with me.
There is a great difference between self-affliction and the affliction for the sake of others. The sufferings of Christ are the sweetest thing on earth. The apostle Paul told the Colossians that he rejoiced in his sufferings for their sake, and his word to the Philippian church was “that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.” This is intercession.
