Passion 2024: Levi Lusko shares 4 ways to glorify God amid suffering
Levi Lusko warned young people gathered at Passion 2024 that the "devil wants to tear your house down through pain" and offered four tips to help Christians keep Satan from "stealing our joy and God's glory in our suffering."
"You can be sure the devil wants to use your pain," the 42-year-old Fresh Life Church pastor said. "The devil wants to tear your house down through pain."
"God's up to something in your pain to release His glory, and the glory cannot even be compared to the pain that God's using to produce the glory. And so, to keep the devil from stealing our joy and God's glory in our suffering, what do we need to focus on? Instead of just staring at what has been taken away from us, we need to focus on these four things."
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In the face of pain, the podcast host and author urged attendees to focus on the wonders of Heaven, the weight of glory, the enduring word of God and the wounds and triumphs of Jesus Christ. These focal points, he stressed, provide strength and perspective in the midst of trials.
"In some ways, you will be more qualified to experience glory and bliss in the second Heaven and the second Earth because of the difficulty you faced here," he said. "Wrap your mind around that. The Word of God promises that will happen."
For Lusko, seeking God through pain is deeply personal. In December 2012, Levi and Jenni Lusko's 5-year-old daughter, Lenya, died after suffering an asthma attack.
"Her heart stopped beating in the middle of this attack," Lusko recalled. "And she went home to be with Jesus without warning, without chance for us to say goodbye. It was all so fast. It all happened so quickly. And before we knew it, we were being told, "Which funeral home do you want to call?' And then we were told because of the Christmas rush, they couldn't get kids-size caskets in time and we might have to use a full-sized casket. 'You better quickly pick the grave plot because we have to thaw the ground to be able to dig a hole because Montana's cold in the winter.'"
"In those moments, there was a sense of glory," he continued. "In those moments, there was a peace that passes understanding. We were hurting, don't make any mistake about that. But we found the power of hope like an anchor for your soul, both sure and steadfast, that which enters behind the veil."
Drawing from Romans 8, Lusko explored the theme of enduring suffering as a pathway to experiencing God's glory. He used the metaphor of an inheritance to illustrate the Christian's ultimate reward in Christ, juxtaposing earthly desires and losses with the eternal inheritance promised in Scripture.
The Through the Eyes of a Lion author highlighted the importance of grounding one's identity in the teachings and truths of the Bible rather than in personal trauma, pain or societal influences.
"We are standing in a day when people are choosing to believe everything except the Word of God," he said. "And we hate the idea … of anything being unloving, so we're backpedaling anything that's true."
"My counselor likes to tell me and remind me that our trauma is not to be our template if we're Christians. God's truth is to be our template. If that's the case, your infirmity is no longer your identity. Your identity is to come from Scripture and not from pain.
The Word of God is not just a book; it's a person, and His name is Jesus, and He conquered death and Hell, and He's coming again. So we are to be shaped by God's Word, oriented by God's Word, it is to be our compass, and it is God's Word that is to help us process our difficulties."
Still, Lusko emphasized that Jesus's experience in the lowest places enables Him to empathize with human suffering and transform it into something glorious: "God cares about it. If it hurts you, it matters to him. And He's got a plan to redeem it," he said.
The pastor shared that his family donated Lenya's corneas, something that served as a form of healing and gave comfort to others.
"We found healing there. We found healing in the worship. We found healing in the redemption of giving comfort to others we've received ourselves, and we find the greatest hope when we watch God work through our depleted, exhausted efforts," he said.
Lusko urged attendees to use their experiences of pain and loss as catalysts for personal growth and service to others.
"I want to close by encouraging you that what God wants to do through you is for other people," he said.
Personal trials, he added, lead to broader impacts, citing the historical chain of conversions and ministries starting from Martin Luther to Charles Spurgeon that led to significant religious movements and social changes.
"We will be unpacking what God did through them forever. How does that happen? Through us believing our heartbreak day can become a day of freedom, but not just for us, but for those that God calls us to reach for the precious news of the Gospel," he said.
Passion 2024, held this year in Atlanta, Georgia, on Jan. 3-5, is "a gathering of 18-25-year-olds and their leaders united for the fame of Jesus." Other speakers this year include Sadie Robertson Huff, Louie Giglio and Jonathan Pokluda, with musical performances from KB, Kari Jobe and more.
Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: leah.klett@christianpost.com
