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I’d like to think on these thoughts for a while here.
Why is it when we are set upon by various hellish and painful situations do we seemingly gravitate toward looking for an easier way??
“If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That's to prevent anyone from confusing God's incomparable power with us. As it is, there's not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we're not much to look at. We've been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we're not demoralized; we're not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we've been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn't left our side; we've been thrown down, but we haven't broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus' sake, which makes Jesus' life all the more evident in us. While we're going through the worst, you're getting in on the best!”
“Always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you.”
I thought we wanted to KNOW Him, then why are we trying to avoid the Way He has opened up for this miracle to unfold in us?
I am seeing that it is only through experientially becoming identified with Christ in the circumstances and situations we each face that we are being delivered over to death, that Life might be more than just a groovy concept!
Why is it that we all seem to know so much about suffering, and yet when we are lovingly subjected to it, we begin to move totally away from what he has made clear to us.
“Trust in Me with ALL of your heart, lean NOT unto your understanding, acknowledge Me in ALL of your ways, and I WILL direct your path-goings!”
True, living, meaningful relationship will only come about through dying. “If a seed falls into the ground and it doesn’t die, it abides alone, but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.”
I am discovering that the stuff I am being exposed to on a daily basis is more than sufficient to bring to the surface in my life the head trip I’m on, knowing a lot of stuff, or "knowing/experiencing" the reality of His life in me as me that is more than adequate to address anything that comes my way.
How about you?
Rich
