Tortured but not Harmed

I recently read in the Voice of the Martyrs’ monthly publication the following (I apologize; I tore out the quote without noting which issue I got it from.):

“Holding a gun to Pastor Kap’s head, the army commander asked if he had any last words.  ‘I am ready to die, so I have no last words,’ Pastor Kap replied.  ‘But you are suffering more than me because you don’t know Jesus.  So I am praying for you.’  The commander and his men had [already] spent 24 hours torturing Pastor Kap because he was a Christian pastor.  They wanted him to stop serving the people of his village in Myanmar (Burma).  Thankfully, Pastor Kap was later released unharmed.”

First off, I find that last sentence ironic – he was later released unharmed.  YET, he’d been tortured for 24 hours.  He was released not dead, anyway.  But isn’t that the beauty of it?  Because of Jesus, though I would considered “tortured” the same as “being harmed”, in the eternal perspective, he truly wasn’t harmed.  Those two things aren’t synonymous.  Consider this passage in 2 Corinthians 4:7-18:  

 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

 13 It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, 14 because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. 15 All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

 16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (Emphasis added.)

 Click here to see response part two to the quote from VOM – about “suffering more than me”.