Every person born into the world strives to create his own heaven and earth. But those who are able to hear the Lord, cease from their own works. They give their hope and dreams to God. They allow Him to bring them to the perfect place planned for them from the creation of the world.

The excellency of the power is seen to be of God and not of us.

We who live are always brought down to death in order that the Life of Christ may be available to other people. No matter how educated, talented, or well-intentioned we may be, we have nothing to give that is of eternal worth. It is only as we die that the Virtue of Christ is presented to the needy.

How the world longs to see Jesus! But Jesus is not available in a church that is living in its well-intentioned, religious adamic nature, only in one that has been crucified and raised again in Christ.

God's strength does the work.

But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: (II Corinthians 1:9)

We do not enjoy the process of being brought down to death. We keep attempting to save some part of our doing or thinking. But whatever is gain to us is loss for Christ. God interferes with our life until we are close to despair. We count ourselves as dead.

Then the Lord's power and wisdom are revealed. We are lifted up and brought into a whole new realm of hope and glory.

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (II Corinthians 12:9)

When we are weak, then we are strong. We are strong because God's strength begins to work as we are unable in ourselves to accomplish the tasks set before us. Paul gloried in his distress because the Presence and power of Christ were working in him.

We are able to experience the power of Christ's resurrection.

That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed unto his death; (Philippians 3:10)

When we have been redeemed completely, spirit, soul, and body, we will be living in the fullness of the power of Christ's resurrection life. Today we are bound by the limitations of flesh and blood. When we attain the resurrection we shall be eternally alive in Christ.

Paul was seeking to know the fullness of the power of Christ's resurrection. Paul understood, however, that the power of the resurrection comes to us only to the degree we enter into the sufferings of Christ, into the death of the cross. The cross is the ultimate weakness, for there we lose everything we have desired—and gain everything that is of true worth.

We are filled with eternal life.

He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. (Matthew 10:39)

And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life. (Matthew 19:29)

To be continued.