OUR SOURCE OF STRENGTH?

OUR SOURCE OF STRENGTH

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

2Corinthians [MKJV 5:14-21 [The Apostle Paul wrote to the congregation at Corinth] Clearly, Christ's love guides us. We are convinced of the fact that one man has died for all people. Therefore, all people have died. 15 He died for all people so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for the man who died and was brought back to life for them. 16 So from now on we don't think of anyone from a human point of view. If we did think of Christ from a human point of view, we don't anymore. 17 Whoever is a believer in Christ is a new creation. The old way of living has disappeared. A new way of living has come into existence. 18 God has done all this. He has restored our relationship with him through Christ, and has given us this ministry of restoring relationships. 19 In other words, God was using Christ to restore his relationship with humanity. He didn't hold people's faults against them, and he has given us this message of restored relationships to tell others. 20 Therefore, we are Christ's representatives, and through us God is calling you. We beg you on behalf of Christ to become reunited with God. 21 God had Christ, who was sinless, take our sin so that we might receive God's approval through him. 

  Unless my Lord gives me some sort of further revelation on the topic tomorrow, the DT STRENGTH series ends today. The ink and paper part that is, for godly reliance exercise should continue dynamically lest we become stagnant . . . or for some to return to apathy waiting to die. (1Tim.4:8; 6:6; 2Tim.3:5; 2Pet.1:3; 3:11)

  Waiting to die for most people doesn’t involve moroseness. It is treadmill activity, motion without progress pleasing the Lord. Some, more energetic at waiting to die will tilt the treadmill and/or leap from treadmill to treadmill, but still go nowhere with God.

  There have been, presently are, and will be individuals and groups of people with great personal strength.

  Saul of Tarsus was such a man of great personal strength: Energetic, well-educated, positioned and active in authority with exercising great force of character and personality.

  After his road to Damascus encounter with Omnipotent Sovereign God, Saul did not have just a name change. (Act9:1-16) Nor did he experience renewal as presented and offered in some denominations. The new person Paul understood and accepted the truth that his, man’s, strength is insufficient for present and eternal life.

  Paul explained this in his letter to the troubled congregation at Corinth: “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life [Gr. Vitality/vitalizes]. . . . And [the Lord] said unto me, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’” (2Cor.3:5-6; 12:9a)

  For some reading the above, it is new news. For others like me, it is yet again reminder. Whichever way matters little. The important life question is: For strength, am I running on treadmills or exercising on The One Way? (Jn.14:6)  EBB4