We enter the Kingdom of God through much tribulation. The lives of the men and women of God of all ages teach us that the Lord's people often are sheep for the slaughter. Those who live a godly life in Christ shall suffer persecution.

But God has a purpose in our pain. He is carving us into the image of His Son. We are being changed. The distressing experiences are working for our good. It is through our weakness that the Life of Jesus is being revealed in us, and it is by holding fast to that eternal Life that we are brought into the image of the Son of God.

If we are not transformed we cannot possibly enter the Kingdom of God, for there is neither sin nor self-seeking in the Kingdom of God. We must be changed. The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit in us.

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. (II Corinthians 4:10)

Paul sought to share Christ's sufferings, to be changed into the death of Jesus. What is the death of Jesus? Trouble, perplexity, persecution, being casting down.

Sometimes we Christians think about the tribulations of the Apostles and consider that we never could endure such hardships. The truth is, the troubles we ourselves are experiencing this minute are the sort of problems to which Paul was referring. We miss the transforming work of God because we perceive our own cross as being a needless harassment of us, or of God's work, while we regard the sufferings Paul described as being a Divine intervention that resulted in the revealing of Christ.

Our own problems will result in the revealing of the Life of Christ if we will allow the Lord to use them in that manner.

Right now we have trouble. Right now we are perplexed. Right now people may be viewing our attempts to do good as coming from evil motives. Right now we may be being cast down by pressures that nearly are unbearable—that are unbearable except for the Life of Jesus that keeps on enabling us to be victorious even though the victory may be only for one moment at a time.

What is taking place as a result of our bearing about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus? Change. Change in us and change in those who are being touched by the Divine Life that is lifting us up. This is how we become the new covenant of God, not only in our own relationship to the Lord but also in bringing others into the same transforming relationship. Here is the image of God and here is fruitfulness—two of the four elements of the Divine decree (Genesis 1:26-28).

For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. (II Corinthians 4:11)

To be continued.