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The Daily Word of Righteousness
A Conduit Verses a Tree of Life, continued
As it is written: For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. (Romans 8:36—NIV)
Dissatisfaction with the Christian church programs seems to be especially
prevalent in our day. Because the churches are working their humanly contrived, humanly operated Gospel programs, people are turning to the Muslim, Jewish, and Hindu religions in the hope of finding something more than the Evangelical efforts, which often are altogether too much of flesh and blood. The intentions of religious leaders may be above reproach but men and women, boys and girls, desire "the all-surpassing power" that is from God and not from us.
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. (II Corinthians 4:8-10—NIV)
We are hard pressed. All kinds of pressures and problems, irritations and painful experiences, come upon us. But in spite of this continual harassment we are not crushed. In order to crush us Satan would have to overcome the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
How many times we are perplexed!—we cannot find God's will! We thought when we became a Christian we would always know the right way. So often darkness and confusion fill our mind and heart. But we never despair. Christ has brought us out in time past and He will bring us out of our present darkness.
During the very time I am writing hundreds of thousands of Christians across the face of the world are being tortured and killed, their families broken up, their possessions confiscated. The Lord Jesus always is very close to those who are suffering for His Name.
Just when it seems we finally are getting somewhere we are struck down and have to begin again. We keep on following the Lord because, as Peter said, there is nowhere else to go. Only Jesus has the words of eternal life.
Sometimes it seems the end is here. We have the sentence of death in ourselves so that we trust in God who raises the dead. And He does! Somehow we find ourselves on the other side of the valley singing, "Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come. 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home."
Notice again what Paul said:
We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. (II Corinthians 4:10—NIV)
The pressures, the perplexities, the persecutions, the frustrations, the pains, the fears and dreads, are the death of Jesus lived out in us. But as we share His sufferings the power of His resurrection keeps on lifting us.
This is the point. We don't receive the power of His resurrection until it is needed to lift us from death. Other people then live by the power that is raising us up.
It is at this point that the conduits and the trees of life take divergent paths.
To be continued.