The Everyday Prayer

Re:Verse passage–2 Corinthians 4:7-18, 5:1-10 (day seven).  Good morning!  I am looking forward to seeing you in a few hours.  Our subject this morning will be our dual assignment from God–living in time AND eternity, keeping our eyes on UNSEEN THINGS even while we are surrounded by VISIBLE THINGS that seem very pressing.  It is a question of priority.  It is a matter of heart and focus.  Like Peter walking on the water, when we focus on earthly things we are dragged down by them.  Doesn’t your experience prove this proposition?  Mine does.  In contrast, when we focus on eternal things, we find strength.  (Even for the visible things.)  What a paradox! What an unexpected path forward!  “Our inner nature is being renewed day by day. . .as we look not at what is seen, but at what is unseen.” (2 Corinthians 4:16,18)  I am praying for you this morning and for myself that the Lord will speak this lesson deeply into our lives.  For His fame alone!

Re:Verse passage–2 Corinthians 4:7-18, 5:1-10 (day six)    When God rescued the nation of Israel from Egyptian slavery, He immediately led them into the wilderness.  In the wilderness He taught them the lessons of spiritual life.  None of these lessons were more important than DAILY dependence.  Manna was provided every day.  Every day they had to go look for it.  This is a lesson that most of us have to learn or relearn.  In 2 Corinthians 4:16, the Bible speaks of being “renewed DAY BY DAY’.  Paul’s experience and expectation is that God will provide energy, courage, wisdom and resources, but only as we are faithful to seek His promised help.  “If my people will humble themselves and SEEK my face”  says the the Lord as a precondition of His healing power.  Not once, but once a day we are to seek and find Him!   What we need, and what is offered by God, is a DAILY miracle.  Are you too busy today to stop and find God’s help?

“So death works in us, but life in you. . .Therefore we do not lose heart. . .for we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”  (2 Corinthians 4:12, 16, 5:10)  Paul is being honest.  Honest about the hardships of serving Christ.  Honest also about the hope.  So many opponents.  So many disappointments.  At the same time so many indications of LIFE at work in those who are hearing the gospel.  Rather than judging life by its comfort (a modern and deadly mistake), he judges it by its eternal impact.  Knowing that we will all stand before Christ, to be evaluated and rewarded or punished, he refuses to lose heart or give up his godly mission.  Paul knows the bottom line of true success.  It gives him courage.  May it do so for all of us.

“But we have this treasure in clay jars”  (2 Corinthians 4:7)  “For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practise the very evil that I do not wish” (Romans 7:19)  The hard part of following Christ is that I am still two things.  “The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” said Jesus to Peter, and I know both sides of that equation all too well.  Reading Paul this week has been a reminder (both of the problem and of the solution).  I am a clay pot who also carries spiritual treasure.  I am wasting away AND being renewed! (vs 16) My part in the management of this duality is to keep my eyes on eternal things. ( Vs. 18)  I may not be able to change the fact that I am two things.  But I can have one focus, one heart, one goal.  When I do, being two things is not as hard as I once thought.

“The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore, the eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light” (Matthew 6:22) “While we LOOK not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are unseen” (2 Corinthians 4:18) Paul is intentional in his choice of words.  Rather than the normal word for sight, he uses one that means a “prolonged, intentional concentration”.  He intends for us to gaze, to contemplate, to study, to exercise our eyes and our mind.  What are you looking at this morning?  Where is your heart and your focus?  Sometimes our failures in service or fruitfulness can be traced to where we have our eyes.  Those who gaze at the glory of Christ, grasping  His beauty and faithfulness are shaped and strengthened by such an experience.  Those who focus on this life and its pain and pleasures find only darkness.  “Fixing our eyes on Jesus” writes the author of Hebrews.  Great wisdom and great power here!

My life is a puzzle and paradox.  Yours too probably.  Some moments I can be so high.  Other moments I can be so low and discouraged.  Sometimes I am both at the same time.  Paul seems to understand.  “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed” he says in 2 Corinthians 4:8.  “Pressed on every side” is the best translation.  Surrounded!  Trapped in our stress!  Even so, he continues, we are not crushed–“not pushed into a corner with no way out” is the literal translation.  In our worst moments, we still have opportunities for honoring the Lord.  We are never without options!  NOTHING can crush His unconquerable LIFE out of our hearts.  (Think of the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7)  Why would God make us so powerful and yet so vulnerable?  Is there a purpose served by making us strong and weak at same time?  Paul says yes!  I hope you are reading and thinking as he addresses this mystery of life.  Know of my prayers for you as you do.

Good morning!  Welcome to a new week of Re:Verse.  “But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”  (2 Corinthians 4:7)  It seems like a strange plan.  God takes a priceless painting and wraps it in old newspaper.  He puts a treasure in an ordinary, breakable clay pot!  The “treasure” is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.  (see 3:6)  The “clay pots” are His people and ministers.  His purpose?  To keep the attention on the message rather than the messengers.  To insure that no one ever thinks the source of this enormous power is us!  Question.  Do you believe that God brings trials into your life so that no one is ever confused (including you) that this power rises from your own wisdom or goodness.  Do you believe that we preach better when we are weak?  Paul did.

“Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it?”  (Isaiah 43:19)  “He will put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God” (Psalm 40:3)  One mark of the New Testament is that it brings newness.  If you are reading 2 Corinthians 2,3 and 4 this week, you are aware of Paul’s thoughts on this matter.  We do not peddle the word. (It is not a product we market for profit.)  We are sent by God and speak with sincerity and conviction. Vs 2:17. This is new!  Our message is the Spirit not the letter. Vs 3:6  This is new too.  We speak with boldness, not inhibition or fear. Vs 3:12.  There is power for transformation. Vs 3:18  We do not lose heart or get discouraged. Vs 4:1   All are parts of New Testament life.  May the Spirit make us new in these ways as we walk with Him.  I will see you in a few hours.  Don

“The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing. . .the glory of Christ.”  (2 Corinthians 4:4)  What the enemy does not want us to see is the GLORY of Christ.  In spite of the evidence, many do not.  The disciples didn’t (in the gospels).  They watched the feeding of the 5000 and soon after were afraid as they observed Him walking on water. (Mark 6)  They had no “insight” says Mark.  No adequate concept of His identity and power.  Do you SEE His glory?  Do you regularly lift your eyes from your “stuff and struggles” to see the Lord “high and lifted up”(Isaiah 6)?  Has the radiant Christ become your vision? It is at the level of imagination/conviction that we  grasp the beauty and competence and reality of Christ.  As we “behold” His glory we are “transformed by it” (2 Corinthians 3:18)  There is something very powerful here.  Something that the enemy does not want us to see.  Praying for you, dear friends.  See you tomorrow!  Don

Do you think it is strange how often missionaries talk about the Devil?  Maybe it isn’t.  Those who are passionate about rescuing others from darkness are frequently reminded (by painful personal experience) of the powerful opponents who work to prevent such salvation.  Opponents.  Plural.  The Puritans used to speak of “the world AND the flesh AND the devil”.  Some believe that Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:4 IS calling Satan, “the god of this world”.  Maybe, but it seems like too much respect.  Paul may have been referring to”the world, operating as a counterfeit god”.  The world and its values and problems and anxieties consuming our attention and thereby blinding us to “the light of . . .the glory of Christ”.  It is the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches that choke the word and make it unfruitful.  (Matthew 13:22)  My testimony is probably the same as yours.  When my eyes are on “the stuff” I cannot see the Savior.