May 14, 2013 - Death to Life

These cooler days are causing my throat to feel sore but my beautiful roses are saying, "thank you, mom." I have the most beautiful, dark burgundy rose bush in which a singular rose releases enough fragrance to fill a room. Some of my roses are beautifully colored, but have little to no fragrance. Where are the roses of my childhood? I know I don't remember everything, but I seem to remember the roses at least having a fragrance. Am I having memory problems? I guess that depends upon who you ask. LOL I was reading this passage this morning and wanted to share it with you. 2 Corinthians 4:8-10 (NLT) reads, "We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies." If we simply read passages out of context, we could become fearful or frustrated with life. These verses describe how many of us feel, but as we spoke of in yesterday's blog, we all need the power of hope. So let's read a little further, (vs. 14-18) " We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory. That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever." Don't you feel better already? I do. Here are my thoughts: If you read the entire chapter of 2 Corinthians 4 you will find this passage refers to allowing the light we have in our hearts because of our acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, to proclaim in spite of our troubles, the Glory of God and the good news of the gospel. If you read the chapter in the New Living Translation, you will find Paul comment that we don't need to use trickery to communicate the good news. People will see the evidence of a changed life. This evidence of change comes as we experience the death in our bodies of those attitudes and sin-issues that reflect our old ways and not our new life in Christ. Praise God for His great work in each of us! Let's use this as a picture to bring encouragement to our daily health journey. As we live our lives as healthy adults, we certainly have endured death to some of our favorite foods and habits, haven't we? But the more we allow the evidence of a changed life to shine before others, the more hope we give them that people can change. If I can change, so can you and so can others. Our "death" experiences in our health journey actually become light to others. It really is good news and often undeniable good news. I believe in the good news of the Gospel and I believe that each of our lives can be a light in so many areas. Shine well today friends, PK