Are we called to a life of suffering? What does suffering with Christ look like?
Romans 8:14-17
All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ– if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
We gathered Wednesday night and sat with this passage. It’s one of those places in Scripture that many of us have read before—maybe too quickly.
But something stood out this time. Verse 15 begins with “a spirit of slavery leading to fear,” and then in verse 16 it shifts to “the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit.”
That small shift—from a to the—is more than grammar. It’s meaning.
A implies one of many. The implies one of one. It’s the difference between saying someone is a man and saying someone is the man.
Not Just a Poser
For most of my life, I read this passage on a surface level. It seemed to say that if we’re going to be true heirs with Christ, then we have to suffer. Period. And if we weren’t suffering, then we weren’t really in. We were posers. Suffering with Christ was essential to going to heaven.kk
That interpretation—though common—has teeth. It aligns with something many of us were taught: that God’s love is unconditional for His children, but becoming one of His children was conditional. Do enough. Suffer enough. Be good enough. Then you belong.
But the language Paul uses here pushes against that narrative.
“Abba! Father!”: A Cry We Inherit
In verse 15, Paul writes that we cry out, “Abba! Father!” That’s not random. That’s a deliberate callback to Mark 14:36—when Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, prays before his crucifixion:
“Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.”
That’s not a casual prayer. That’s a prayer of surrender—of love that costs something. Jesus is facing suffering, not because he’s failed, but because he’s choosing love. Paul echoes this, connecting our own cries of Abba! Father! with Jesus’s. In doing so, he reminds us that to love like Christ is to suffer like Christ.
The Suffering of Love
Verse 18 confirms that Paul’s audience is suffering. But interestingly, at the time Romans was written, the church wasn’t under any major persecution. So what “suffering” is Paul talking about?
It may be the kind that comes just from living in a world that resists love.
Choosing to love—truly love—always involves some degree of suffering. It requires giving something up: our time, our energy, our preferences, our pride. And sometimes, it means opening ourselves up to loss.
Marriage and parenting are two arenas where this becomes painfully clear. To marry is to choose someone “for better or worse.” To raise children is to lay your life down daily. Both are platforms for love—and both come with suffering.
But that’s the kind of love Jesus modeled. Love that gives. Love that loses. Love that doesn’t keep score. Love that risks being rejected. That’s the Spirit-led life Paul is pointing to. Not a life of sanitized religiosity, but a life that looks like Jesus in Gethsemane.
The Glory We Can’t Yet See
Paul writes that the “sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us.” And honestly? I don’t know what that glory is. I don’t think any of us do.
But I do know this: when you choose to love in a world that doesn’t reward it, it can feel like you’re losing. Paul assures us: you’re not.
Whatever glory is coming—it’s not payment, it’s not prestige, and it’s not a trophy. It’s something deeper. It’s something we can’t manufacture. It’s the result of God finishing what He started in us when we first cried out Abba! It’s the culmination of love having the final word.
So maybe that’s the point of Romans 8:14–18. Not a conditional promise or a fear-based warning. But an invitation:
To suffer with Christ is to love like Christ.
And to love like Christ is to be led by the Spirit.
And to be led by the Spirit means you are already a child of God.
