2 Corinthians 4:7-12
Last night I had the chance to go and hear the well known evangelist Bill Stafford preach this passage at First Baptist Church in Fort Smith, Arkansas. He reiterated one of the many principles of being disciples...you must die in order to live.
What a great reminder for us. We who think we deserve more comfort and less heartache; more friends and less enemies; more health and less sickness; more happiness and less sadness; more "blessing" and less burdens...no, we must die. God allows His people---places His people in the fire that we might learn to die in order that Christ might live through us.
Listen, it's not about me or you; it's about Him. It's about the supremacy of Christ in all things. Life for the Christian is a life of death so that more and more Christ might be made manifest. That causes us to view our surroundings differently. That causes us to love our families differently. That causes us to view our church differently. That causes us to spend money differently.
We must die. We must place our lives continually on the Spirit's anvil and allow God to chip away at us until it is not we who live but Christ.
