Bullets for the Battle

Wake Up! Be Comforted and Encouraged

But we have this treasure (our possession of Christ Life potential) in jars of clay (our sinful earth bodies) to show that this all-surpassing power 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; knocked down, but never knocked out. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. II Corinthians 4:7-12

This fallen world is dominated by illusions, delusions and confusions and its victims are destined for diminishment, destruction and death. Cross Disciples must be trained and skilled to see and believe that reality. They are then positioned to overcome the lies. They welcome authentic testing and practice. Hence, the Father sees to it that we all taste deeply the desperate reality of emptiness that comes when we pursue a life of ignoring the Godhead. All mankind must carry the sense and weight of sin’s futility throughout life. We all struggle with sorrow and the consequences of “the fall.” Nevertheless, liberating insights gained from our own cross carrying makes our “living death-grief” a secondary issue. It was exactly the same for the Savior! He knew crushing sadness, but it was inferior and subservient to His revealing the life of the Father to others! We must follow Him in this and develop the same attitude! (Phil. 2:5-11). We will then continue to discover the remarkable and dazzling principle of “death deliverance.” We will be increasingly freed to turn every death situation into life from Jesus. We will become revealers of His Presence. We will sense He is progressively alive within us. Our experiential death to “what isn’t” (idols) will make plain to others “Who is” (the True God).

The more we recognize the creeping and insidious disaster of sin around us and within us, the more earnestly and abandonly we seek the truth in Scripture. These deepening revelations of Christ’s Voice as the Spirit speaks and the redemptive meaning of the “cross lessons” that are all around us will open our eyes to “death deliverance”! It is then that the Father uses again and again our death to what isn’t to show through us to others what is and even more … Who is! We are re-created in Christ to be agents of Messiah Love to reveal His invitation to life! It is the kind of life that will reign over death for all who receive and embrace His yoke (our labor), His cross (our death) and His promise (our resurrection).

The most significant, superior, consequential and distinguished experience you can possess in life is to have Christ’s life revealed through your own! It is being thrilled with the breathtaking realization that by sacrificing yourself in pursuit of our magnificent Savior you experience a growing detachment from the empty “lesser things” that engulf you! You focus supremely on the reality that you can bring life … God’s kind of life … into the existence of other people! You realize that you are living out the Lord’s greatest commandment … that you … weak and insignificant you … are repeating His life during your time on earth! “As the Father sent Me … so I send you … in exactly the same way! Repeat My life by drinking My cup of reality … by carrying My cross of redemption … and by sharing My commission for reconciliation” (John 17:18, 20:21, HDM). Doing this is what it means to live a life of Messiah Love! Most amazing of all, He has chosen each of us … by name … to do it! (John 15:16-17).

For almost all my Christian life, II Corinthians 4 has been my favorite chapter on encouragement in all the Scriptures. I first read it as a freshman college student. I had known the Lord Jesus for a little over eighteen months. My heart was in anguish and discouragement. I sensed my first attempt at disciple leadership had failed. I had written and mailed over twenty letters of earnest appeal to other student friends to attend a prayer/organization meeting to reach our campus. Not one person showed up! I sat alone in the classroom. I was stunned, sad, empty and confused! After twenty or so minutes, an older graduate student finally arrived late. My heart leapt with gratitude, but my face and words betrayed my keen disappointment. He perceptively asked me if I had ever read II Corinthians 4. I had not. We then read it together, and it was as though the Savior Himself had entered room 116 Hyer Hall on the SMU campus! My heart was stirred, revived and soared. As long as I live, I will never forget that moment over 57 years ago. I will never forget my fellow student, Roy Irving. Nor my little black New Testament I constantly carried. Nor the chair where I was sitting. Nor which way I was facing into the room. Nor the fresh and assuring call I sensed on my life to “… carry around in my body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus can be revealed in me!” That moment was my first experience of what the cross would … should … mean to my life. I have had hundreds of such touches since. The pain each has brought me has always been my gain! (II Cor. 12:9).

Above all, I will always fervently cherish the words of this chapter! They came off the page with the force of a mighty wind that blew fresh, cool, calming power into my young, weak and naïve disciple’s heart. In the following six decades I, too, have pointed hundreds of discouraged Jesus followers to this wondrous passage. I rejoiced to see that Paul’s magnificent words of “LIFT” could never have been written in II Corinthians 4 unless he had endured and overcome his own despair in II Corinthians 1:8-11. Paul’s experience in Asia (like mine in Hyer Hall) was also the basis for his marvelous introduction to this II Corinthian letter in chapter 1, verses 3-8! Drink deeply here, my dear friend, if you desire the Lord’s encouragement and power, “Praise be to … the God of all comfort …”!

I have told everyone I could through all my years that II Corinthians 4 is the greatest passage of encouragement in the Bible. At least it is for me! Truly, it was on that day that the Master wrote those words on my heart with the pen of His Spirit. They have only deepened since branded by the fire of the Holy Spirit. They will be there until I die and then even more! My only regret is being too limited and too sinfully stubborn to live out each and every word to the full! Yet, in my heart I know that day will come! Oh, what a dear and wondrous Savior we truly have! I praise Him for His mercy, patience and forgiveness. I recognize in praise every “death deliverance” (4:11). I remain more deeply amazed than ever that He deals with me so gently! (Mt. 11:29). Truly, I am one of His poorest and most unworthy followers!

… we have been given the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ … therefore we do not lose heart … so we fix our eyes … on the eternal. II Corinthians 4:6, 16, 18