In the previous article, I argued that who we are becoming in this life matters for eternity. That statement needs qualification. No believer will enter heaven still stained by bitterness, pride, resentment, unbelief, or worldliness. At death, those in Christ will be made perfect in holiness, and at the resurrection, even their bodies will be raised in glory. Glorification will remove every remaining trace of sin.

But this final perfection will not render our earthly formation meaningless. It will end our fallen, sinful condition forever, yet the humility, faith, endurance, love, obedience, and holiness God works in His people will remain, be completed and purified, and be carried into eternity.

Death is not a bonfire that consumes the whole house; it is a refining fire that burns away the dross, leaving the gold. What Christ forms in you now will shine in the glory of His Kingdom.

This is especially important when we consider suffering. If suffering is one of the instruments God uses to form Christian character, then it is not merely something we endure until heaven begins. Under the hand of God, suffering is part of His preparation of us for the glory, responsibility, honor, and joy of the coming Kingdom.

This may sound unfamiliar, perhaps even dangerous, to Christians rightly jealous for the doctrine of grace. So let me be clear: suffering does not save us, character does not justify us, and obedience does not purchase heaven. Christ alone is our righteousness, and our entrance into the Kingdom rests entirely on His finished work. Nevertheless, the Scriptures indicate that what Christ forms in us through trials and tribulations can shape our capacity for heaven and our place of service there.

The same Scriptures that teach salvation by grace also teach reward for faithfulness, honor for humility, reigning with Christ after suffering, and glory after affliction. Therefore, we must not flatten heaven into sameness. The redeemed will be equally loved, equally cleansed, and equally secure in Christ. But that does not mean every believer will be equally rewarded, equally honored, equally assigned, or equally fitted for every measure of glory.

This is where suffering becomes eternally significant, not because it saves us, but because God uses it to form the character that will matter in the life to come.

The apostle Paul writes, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Paul is not minimizing suffering, as though it were painless or unimportant. He himself suffered greatly. Rather, he is contrasting present suffering with future glory. When set beside the eternal glory God is preparing, even severe affliction is “light” and “momentary” by comparison.

The key phrase is “worketh for us.” Paul is saying much more than that suffering will one day give way to glory. He is saying that God is now using suffering to prepare that glory. Under God’s gracious providence, suffering is producing, preparing, and contributing to an eternal weight of glory. It is shaping something in us that belongs not merely to time but to eternity.

It should also be noted that suffering does not automatically sanctify. Pain by itself can harden a person, making the soul resentful, suspicious, self-protective, and cold. Some people suffer and become bitter. Some suffer and turn inward. Some suffer and accuse God of injustice. Suffering alone does not save, cleanse, or make the soul more like Christ.

But suffering, entrusted to God, endured with humble and obedient faith, submitted to the Spirit, and joined to Christ, can become holy preparation. It can enlarge the soul. It can deepen compassion. It can expose pride. It can purify motives. It can teach dependence on God. It can loosen our grip on the world. It can make prayer less formal, more personal, and more desperate. It can make Christ more precious. It can teach us to obey even when obedience is costly. It can produce endurance where ease would have left us with only a shallow heart.

This is why the question of suffering is not only “When will this end?” The deeper question is “What is this making of me?”

Am I becoming bitter or meek? Hard or tender? Proud or humble? Fearful or trusting? Worldly or heavenly-minded? Self-protective or lovingly sacrificial? Resentful or compassionate?

If who I am becoming now is who I will be in eternity, then these questions matter more than we realize.

This pattern is not unique to us. It first appears in our Lord. The coming Kingdom is not merely a place of comfort and bliss after pain. It is the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ, a realm of holiness, humility, love, service, truth, worship, and splendor. God is preparing us for that realm by making us more like its King.

The Bible even says that the King Himself was “made perfect” through suffering. Hebrews 2:10 says, “For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” This does not mean that Christ was ever sinful, immature in character, or morally deficient. He was always undefiled and without sin. Rather, it means that as the incarnate Son of God, He was brought through the full course of suffering and obedience appointed for Him as our Savior. His suffering did not improve a defective character; it completed His appointed path as the obedient Son, accomplished His saving work, and led to His exaltation as Lord over all. Hebrews 5:8 adds that He “learned obedience by the things which he suffered,” meaning that He experienced obedience under the hardest possible conditions.

If the King's path was one of suffering before glory, should we be surprised that His people are prepared for glory along a similar path?

Paul writes in Romans, “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Romans 8:17). The pattern is unmistakable: suffering with Christ, then glory with Christ.

Again, this does not mean that suffering earns our redemption. We are children by grace through faith alone. But it does mean that belonging to Christ involves sharing a path like His in our own lives. We follow Him through suffering now, and we will share in His glory when He reigns.

If suffering shapes the soul, it also helps explain why Scripture speaks as it does about rewards, crowns, authority, and honor at the Judgment. These are not arbitrary prizes handed out in heaven. They are fitting recognitions of the grace revealed in us from this present life. They testify to what God has formed in the soul through His Spirit. In large measure, they are connected to who we have become by grace.

Jesus told of servants entrusted with money while their master was away. In Luke’s account, when the nobleman returned, the first faithful servant was told, “Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities” (Luke 19:17). Another servant received authority over five cities (Luke 19:19). In Matthew’s account, the faithful servant receives a fuller commendation, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things” (Matthew 25:21). The point is difficult to miss: faithfulness in little things is rewarded with greater trust, and faithful servants are not all entrusted with the same measure of responsibility. Faithfulness in this life becomes responsibility in the Kingdom, and greater faithfulness is met with greater responsibility.

This is a remarkable truth, often overlooked because Christians do not always think of the coming Kingdom with enough eternal perspective. The coming Kingdom of God is not merely about rest, relief, or heavenly bliss. It is about delegated responsibility. The coming Kingdom is not an eternity of idleness, nor is it the childish caricature of saints strumming harps on clouds forever. It is the reign of Jesus Christ, in which His servants will be given meaningful places of service under His perfect authority.

Some will be entrusted with lesser responsibilities, and others with greater ones, but each will receive what is fitting, righteous, and wise. The glory revealed in us — what we have become in character, faith, and obedience to Christ in this life — is closely connected to the responsibility entrusted to us in the Kingdom. The servant who had been faithful with little was entrusted with much. In other words, faithfulness in this life prepared him for responsibility during Christ’s eternal reign.

That means the person who has learned faithfulness in obscurity is being prepared for a greater trust. The person who has learned humility is being prepared for honor. The person who has learned obedience is being prepared for authority. The person who has suffered without surrendering to bitterness is being prepared to reflect the Lamb who was slain – a marvelous distinction to bear throughout eternity!

Sometimes this preparation is evident even before eternity. Joseph, the son of Jacob in the book of Genesis, did not immediately move from suffering to honor; he first endured betrayal, slavery, false accusation, and prison. Yet through those very afflictions, God was preparing him for the responsibility he would later bear in Egypt. Joseph could say to his brothers, “ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good” (Genesis 50:20). His trials did not merely test him; they trained him.

If God sometimes uses suffering to prepare His servants for greater usefulness in this life, how much more may He use it to prepare them for the responsibilities and glory of the life to come?

Have you ever noticed that suffering often exposes the very places where our character needs the most formation? It unearths what ease may have buried. It reveals the sins and weaknesses that grip our souls: our impatience, our pride, our lack of self-control, our dependence on human approval, and our love of earthly security. God often uses suffering to bring these things to the surface, not to destroy us but to cleanse and reshape us.

God’s fiery trials can refine His people, and that refining has eternal consequences. Paul says that each person’s work will be tested by fire; if it survives, the person will receive a reward, but if it is burned up, the person will suffer loss, though the person himself will be saved (1 Corinthians 3:13–15).

This is quite sobering. A believer may truly belong to Christ yet lose what might have been rewarded because he was not faithful with the opportunities, responsibilities, sufferings, and trials providentially assigned in this life.

The degrees of glory in heaven will not breed envy. When some are entrusted with more, they will not boast. In the Kingdom, there will be no rivalry, vanity, resentment, or pride. Every crown will be cast before the throne of Christ, and every reward will be understood as an act of God’s grace.

But again, grace does not mean sameness. The grace that saves also shapes. Who we become in this life matters for eternity.

Perhaps the old illustration is helpful: every cup in heaven will be full, though not every cup may be the same size. Every believer will be perfectly blessed. Every saint will be free from sin. Every redeemed soul will fully rejoice in Christ. No one will lack anything necessary for complete satisfaction. Yet some souls, enlarged by sufferings, deepened by endurance, and purified by trial, are made capable of receiving and reflecting a greater weight of glory.

For the child of God, this gives incredible meaning to pain. So much suffering can seem senseless. So much heartache and disappointment go unseen. So much faithfulness goes unnoticed. Countless battles are fought in silence. There are believers who endure grief, illness, disability, rejection, disappointment, loneliness, persecution, and private burdens no one else truly understands. These people may seem insignificant. Their names may never be known. Their sacrifices may never be applauded.

But the Lord Jesus sees.

He sees the many passionate prayers offered through tears. He sees the obedience that no one recognized. He sees the forgiveness that cost dearly. He sees the bitterness resisted. He sees the faith that held on in the darkness. He sees the sufferer, like Job, who endured extraordinary loss, was failed by friends who should have comforted him, and still said, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15).

The Lord sees, and He will not forget. The righteous Judgment of our Lord will reveal what was hidden and honor what was wrought by grace.

This is one of the great hopes in Christian suffering. When our suffering is surrendered to the Lord in faith and obedience, the pain that seems to diminish us actually enlarges us. The loss that seems to empty us makes room for God’s power and glory within us. The humiliation that seems to lower us prepares us for great honor. The endurance that feels like mere survival trains us to reign with Jesus.

This does not mean we should seek suffering for its own sake. God forbid. Suffering is an enemy. Death is an enemy. Christians should not romanticize affliction. Jesus healed the sick and infirm. He did not pretend that death was beautiful. He wept at the tomb of Lazarus. Nevertheless, in the hands of God, suffering itself becomes a servant. What evil intends for harm, God in His providence can turn to our good. What appears to be loss can become preparation for eternal gain.

Therefore, the Christian must learn to pray more deeply when afflicted. Not only should he pray, “Lord, deliver me,” which is perfectly right, but he should also pray, “Lord, in this moment of misery and travail, make me faithful. Make me humble. Make me tender. Make me holy. Do in me all that you have purposed through my pain. Make me more like the Lord Jesus. Use my anguish, my sorrow, my grief, and my torment to prepare me for the glory to come.

Because who we are becoming in this life matters for eternity. Every trial, when entrusted to God, can become an opportunity for Him to do a work of glory in our souls.

Consider this text from St. Peter: “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth… might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6–7).

When the Kingdom comes, it will be revealed that not one tear, not one surrender, not one act of costly obedience, and not one act of faithful endurance was without eternal significance.

The shape of the soul matters forever.

If you missed the first two installments on these articles on suffering, you can find the previous ones here:

1. The Promise God Never Made

2. Who You Are Becoming Will Last Forever

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