How does God's redemption comes through suffering?
(Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co- heirs with Christ , if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory (Romans 8:17). The theme of sharing in Christ ’s sufferings is an important one in Paul’s letters. As Christians we are baptized into the death of Christ, and we are called to participate, in a certain sense, in the sufferings of Christ and the tribulations of the kingdom of God. Our sufferings do not earn us merit, but rather their purpose is to solidify our identification with Jesus and to work out the redemptive purposes of God. Filling Up What Is Lacking Paul states in Colossians 1:24 that Christians fill up in their flesh “what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions.” Some theologians, especially in the Roman Catholic community, have deduced from this that the sufferings of believers are meritorious, adding to a kind of deficiency that exists in the value of the suffer