The Bullet of New Life in Christ: Our Great Testimony
We should welcome all of our little “death circumstances.” “We who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake” (II Cor. 4:11). The Father wants us aware enough of death (despairs) so we will wake up to our life (delights) in Jesus. See every job loss, broken relationship, family crisis, personal rejection, depressed moment, wasted opportunity, sick regret, financial fear, hopeless expectation, honest emptiness, political agony, health concern, enduring sadness, tough time and, yes, even your secret besetting sin(s), etc. as a revealed death for Jesus’ sake. Learning to “put” each of these existential events, wounds, frustrations, disappointments and thoughts “in Christ” turns them eventually into “doors of deliverance.” All other doors are dead ends.
It is in honestly seeing the utter tragic reality of DEATH, but then handling its cruel hopelessness the way Jesus handled it, that you “feed yourself” with the triumphant hope of the Savior’s kind of LIFE! Blessed are those who “work out” this kind of transition from all of their inevitable “death situations.” To do so is to learn the sweet meaning of our whole and complete salvation! (Phil. 2:12). None of us will ever grasp salvation’s fullness, but we are increasingly assured that there is a fullness there to be grasped.
Remember, it is the Lord Who “puts” us on the death path so that, for Jesus’ sake, we can discover the life path (II Cor. 2:11). Death to my lower, pygmy agenda enables me to live for the Savior’s higher, giant agenda for my life.
It is for our good and deliverance that we taste death just as Jesus did on the cross. Read Isaiah 53 with this thought in mind! Being human without the Presence of God is death. All who truly experience this death reality, so evident in this world, hunger to find or create a path to life. The Lord Christ has shown us that path. He walked through death to the cross on His way to life … resurrection. This is our path as well. If we pursue walking “in His steps” we will find it.
“ONLY GREAT TESTING ENABLES ONE TO GIVE A GREAT TESTIMONY.” And the Lord Jesus said, “I Am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I Am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of absolute control over death and the powers of Hell” (Rev. 1:18).
To learn the details of our dying for Jesus sake is to find our life in Christ for our own sake! This is “the hidden life” that in Him will keep on increasing and that will last forever!
“For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, Who is our life, makes Himself real at His coming, then the significance of all He has done for you will also be made real for all to see!” Colossians 3:3-4
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