The house in which you dwell has God for its Landlord, and you are only a tenant under His lease. The clause in that lease grants the Landlord right of entry at all times, and I fear the shocks and skin afflictions are tokens of His visitation, calling you to look beyond the faulty wiring of the earthly dwelling to the house not made with hands. Yet it is no small thing when suffering comes without cause, when the flesh is wounded and the purse drained through another's neglect. There is a suffering that is simply the common lot of the fallen creation, and there is a suffering that comes because we do not deserve it, and such suffering, when borne in fellowship with Christ, has a peculiar nobility. The landlord's conscience may sleep, and his hand remain closed, but Christ was made perfect through the things which He suffered, not to exempt His people from trouble, but to be a sympathetic High Priest touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
Let not your eye rest too long upon the landlord. If he remains unmoved though a month has passed and no word of remorse has escaped his lips, remember that the ungodly are not impartial judges in their own case. The man who wrongs you cannot be trusted to measure the justice of his own punishment. But there is a court where the Judge of all the earth must do right, and a Substitute in whom justice was satisfied. Bring your cause before the Great Landlord. Say to your own soul, "He suffered, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." And when justice seems to clamor, go with Justice to Gethsemane and to Golgotha, see His dislocated bones, His soul-agonies, and hear Justice declare, "It is enough; I have found a ransom."
The skin of your body may testify to wrongs done, and the cost of showers and medicines is a real burden, but the suffering that brings reigning with Jesus is the suffering that comes from conformity to His image. Is this your portion? Are you suffering with Him, without rebellion, without returning reviling for reviling? He was tempted up to the suffering point, yet opened not His mouth. The landlord's threats are bitter waters, but Christ drank the cup of the Father's will without a murmur. If you are in Christ, this affliction is not the execution of penal justice upon you, it may rather be the chisel of the Sculptor, carving the likeness of the Patient One into your soul.
Do not suppose that the lack of compensation means God is unjust. His promise stands sure: He shall see the travail of His soul and be satisfied. The Eternal Father guarantees that the suffering Servant shall not labor in vain, and if you are a branch in that Vine, neither shall you ultimately suffer without fruit. The Lord means to make of you a barnabas, a son of consolation, through this very furnace. He obtained that tender temper through suffering, and you may do the same.
Set your house in order, and offer the key to the Great Landlord. Acknowledge that you live on sufferance as His tenant. And if the earthly landlord never pays a single coin, yet the Lord will not be indebted to any man. He will make up to you in the riches of His grace, in the sweet communing with Christ who sanctified His people by His own blood, suffering outside the gate. The time may come when the Spirit stirs that man's conscience, but if it tarries, sink not into bitterness. The suffering outside the camp is the badge of the believer. Rejoice, if you are counted worthy to bear it. Come to the Table of Communion, and feed upon Him who is the perfect Savior through suffering, and leave your compensation in the pierced hands that once held the nails.
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. 
