Are you suffering for the sake of Christ?

I woke up to a text this morning from a sister in Christ this morning, Kati Prince, sharing this verse with me:

Philippians 1:29-30
29 For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, 30 engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.

She went on to say are we really suffering in Christ? Wow! One of my former youth challenging me! I love it! So what about the question??

As we follow Jesus we are expected to deny ourselves and live all out for Him. Are we? There are many types of suffering for Christ. A few examples are: Moving away from family to serve Jesus and share the gospel, giving up the majority of your time to love people and share the gospel, giving the majority of your money away to meet the needs of others instead of using it to meet unneeded material things, and then there is folks like Pastor Saeed an American who went back to Iran to visit family and share his faith but was arrested and has been in prison for years now being tortured for his Faith and service to Jesus!

So I go back to the question....are we suffering for the sake of Jesus who gave it all upon the cross for you and I? 

My answer is No I am not even close to where I should be! I am way to comfortable! How about you?

Thank you Kati for challenging us with these verses this morning, may they bring glory and honor to the King!

Tom