Articles
A Joyful Life?
"From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters … of robbers … in the sea … among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness …” (2 Cor 11:24-27). In describing his hardships, here are some things Paul didn’t say:
1) I’m serving you faithfully, Lord, and this is the thanks I get? 2) How much do you think one man can take? 3) How do you expect me to convert others with a life like this?
What Paul does say, sticking with the context of 2 Corinthians:
1) “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation … for as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ …” (1:3, 5).
2) “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us” (1:9-10).
3) “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God” (3:5).
4) “Therefore … as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart” (4:1).
5) “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us” (4:7).
6) “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us [an] eternal weight of glory” (4:16-17).
7) “And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (12:9-10).
A joyful life? Yes, and the same joy can be ours if we fully trust in God.
