Eternal Gain

Mark Batterson post:  Temporal Pain for Eternal Gain

John 21:17 says: "Peter was hurt."

Sometimes the Lord has to hurt us to heal us. Last weekend one of our campus pastors, Dave Schmidgall, broke his nose in our NCC snowbowl. This week he had to go back to the doctor to get it refractured. Seems like cruel and unusual punishment to break what is broken, but that is the only way to make sure it heals the right way.

In John 21, Jesus asks Peter the same question three times: do you love me? Peter was hurt that the Lord asked him three times, but I think it was His way of dealing with Peter's three denials. He didn't want to gloss over the issue. He wanted to deal with the denial. So in a brilliant fashion, Jesus healed Peter by hurting Peter.

If you want to be used by God, you better be willing to endure some temporal pain for eternal gain. The healing may be in the hurt.