Thank you so much for your good letter, which I received in Stavanger. It gives me joy to see that the friends are becoming more and more reconciled to the sufferings of Christ. Jesus suffered most after powerful works and when people exalted Him. Read Luke 9, from verse 42. Here He was the object of the people’s admiration, yet He immediately reminded the disciples that the Son of Man would be delivered into the hands of men. By this He was saying that the honor they were giving Him then was extremely short-lived; they would soon kill Him. We can see something similar in Luke 9:20 where Peter says, “[You are] the Christ of God.” Jesus immediately responded by saying that He would be rejected by the elders, high priests, and scribes and be killed. Jesus could not rejoice over being the Christ of God without going through sufferings and death. It was only after Jesus encountered opposition after doing mighty works that He began to teach and instruct.

From this we can learn not to receive honor from people, because their honor is so short-lived—the very next moment they will spit on us. But if we are honored, we need to remind ourselves that we, like the Master, are to learn obedience through what we suffer; and since the Captain of our salvation was perfected through sufferings, we, too, are to be perfected by and through sufferings.

“For everyone will be seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt loses its flavor, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another.” Mark 9:49-50.

It is especially the last part (underlined) that we ought to pay attention to. If we are personally in sufferings, and the salt is stinging our flesh, we should not burden others with this suffering. If we do that, we will only reap unrest.

We must keep this suffering and this salt to ourselves and keep peace with one another. When we mention such sufferings to others, they get angry. The desire to share our sufferings with others is a human tendency, but we have no right to do that. Jesus trod the winepress alone. On the other hand, the rich man had to suffer alone. He no doubt tried to share his sufferings with Lazarus, but to no avail. To proclaim the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings as a general truth is permissible, but to proclaim one’s own sufferings in order to gain relief and sympathy is not. My personal experience has been that no one has been able to comfort me in my sufferings; they just considered the whole thing to be craziness. So I have had to keep the matter between myself and God, and then I have received comfort from Him.

Since the friends have now begun to enter into the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings, these things might also be of interest, because in both joy and suffering it is so easy to go astray and thereby gratify the flesh. When we suffer, we ought to suffer alone and suffer to the end—not halfway. Christ didn’t burden His disciples with any of His sufferings. So to suffer with Christ means that you suffer alone, just as He suffered. Drawing back from the sufferings is to be an enemy of the cross of Christ. It is important to have counted the cost. If we share in the sufferings, we also share in the comfort. This brings deliverance from death.

We are baptized by one Spirit into one body. The same suffering takes place in our flesh that took place in the flesh of Christ, because we are flesh of His flesh. The same Spirit that was in Christ is in us. This Spirit has led the flesh into death before, and thus it is also able to lead us through death. We have access through the veil, which is His flesh. These truths are true in Him and in us. The resurrection of the dead will show to what degree each one has followed their Lord and Master, for to one is given the glory of the sun, to another the glory of the moon, and one star differs from another star in glory.

We need much quietness in order to meditate on the law of the Lord day and night. We need to train our ear so we can hear what the Spirit is saying to the church. We must avoid studying outward religious forms, because it is the person, Jesus Himself, who we need.

Communion with Him is fellowship with life. Communion with Him is communion with light. Nothing can be compared to Him. Communion with Him makes us like Him.

The anchor of our hope has been cast behind the veil—that is, His flesh. By hauling in the chain (sufferings), we enter in, inch by inch.

The comfort in Christ more than overcomes the sufferings. It is so overwhelmingly powerful that we even rejoice and are very content in all kinds of tribulations.

Your letters are always a source of great joy and refreshment for me. You can be sure that your labor in Christ is not in vain.

I don’t have any special news to share. We are steaming along the coast, and we cast anchor each night. Right now we’re just north of Haugesund. The petty officers on the Sleipner have had their pictures taken, and it would be fun to send you a picture, but we are rarely in a place where I can get the necessary things (large envelope) to send it in. Kristian, Johanne Lovise, and Rakel are doing well. Whenever Johanne sees one of the petty officers returning from the ship, she runs so hard that she gets out of breath, saying “Now Daddy’s coming home too.” Kristian can’t understand why I keep leaving like this.

Greetings to you and everyone at home from your brother, partaking in the power of Christ’s resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings,