true signs of faith
Unlike those seeking converts
for their own personal comfort and gain, Paul truly seeks the well-being of
those who have received the gospel message.
Most scholars believe Paul took the pen at the end of this letter to
authenticate this written message, and the large letters were possibly due to
his impaired eyesight. It was his honest
and sincere presentation of truth to fellow believers who were dear to his
heart. The large letters were quite
possibly a humble testimony of his own physical weakness—unlike his Jewish opponents
who made a “good showing”.
Paul could have boasted in large numbers of converts,
but instead, he boasts in the vehicle of his own personal salvation and
transformation—the cross. For typical
Romans or Greeks the cross was a symbol of shame and horror, and in polite
society one would not even speak of it. Yet
salvation of man comes by the cross, and the cross of Jesus sets a pattern of
laying down self for the sake of love.
The sacrifice of Jesus opens relationship to God, and
in accepting it, one is accepted and invited into resurrection life with Jesus: A new creation, a new man, new relationships
without distinctions and prejudices.
This new life offers freedom from self-justification, self-preservation,
self-adulation.
“For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is
gain.”[1] As long as I live on in the flesh, I have
opportunity for the life of Christ to be expressed in and through me. The journey is one in which transformation
occurs when I aim to present my body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to
God…no longer being conformed to this world, but being transformed by the
renewing of my mind so that God’s good will toward mankind is experienced.[2]
Inevitably,
suffering will be part of the journey.
Why? There are those who choose
to love darkness rather than light, self rather than God or others. Consider Jesus—He was made perfect and
complete through sufferings.[3] Will his followers not experience some of the
same? The Bible, and real life
experience, both show clearly the reality that suffering is part of life, and
sometimes specifically suffering because
one is walking with Christ. Though Paul
had been circumcised as a Jew, his true “marks” of faith were a combination of
physical scars from being beaten because of his faith, and fruits of the Spirit
produced in him, resulting from his faith. How about you, do you bear any marks
of the Lord Jesus?
Read
and pray: 2Peter
1:2-4, Ephesians 4:17-24, 1Peter 4:12-14, Jeremiah 9:23-24
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