What  does it mean to suffer for Christ? I’ve checked your website. I can not find anything that will give me a jumping off point to continue this study. It’s important because I’m not sure if I  suffer for Christ. There are many others who feel the same. Thank you.

The very message of God’s grace revealed to Paul is a message that Satan hates and the world does not want to hear.  Acts 9:16; Colossians 1:24; II Timothy 1:12 and the record of the book of Acts along with the list in  II Corinthians 11:23-28 speak about Paul’s sufferings in getting out God’s message.  Then in  II Timothy 1:7,8 he encourages Timothy to be a “partaker of the afflictions of the gospel.”

So too can you and I partake.  In Galatians 5:11 Paul writes “And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased.”  And in Galatians 6:12 he writes about those who do not teach and preach grace:  “As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.” 

This shows clearly that suffering comes when you preach the gospel of the grace of God purely.  If you tell family and friends that all their religious activities (ceremonies, baptism, infant baptism, communion, isle walking, confessing of sins, catechisms …) cannot save them or make them closer to God; you will suffer their rejection.  But this we must do to get them saved.  If you tell them that their church does not teach the dispensation of the grace of God they will get upset with you.  Many in our assembly got kicked out of their church when graciously they tried to tell the Pastor about right division.

Then add to those sufferings the rejection you suffer when you stand for moral truths such as what God says about homosexuality, or fornication, or corrupt communication.  Just living for the Lord, not doing some things others want you to do or not going places they would ask you to go to will cause them to reject you.

Those things are things Believers suffer all the time here in the United States.  Now add the facts of what happens if you try to live and preach the gospel in other countries such as Iraq or Iran or China.  Now your very life is at stake.

Well you get the point.  Hope that helps.