From Death to Life, the Triumphal Procession

 

 

The Arch of Triumph: Are you part of the procession? by WorldPress.Com.

2 Corinthians 2:14-15, “But thank God! He has made us His captives and continues to lead us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now He uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing.”

We were once slaves to the world’s ways and stuck in bondage, but now we are free. He brings us out of bondage and into the Promised Land where we no longer are in lack and hungry to be filled. He fills us with a rich and satisfying life. We become captives not by lack anymore but by out of love. He claims us as His own and leads us as a triumphal procession of love as our hearts are captive to this incredible God.

We are now on display for His victory over the world and death. We are the evidence that He won as He uses us to spread the gospel everywhere we go, like a sweet perfume. We bring a fragrance of life to some who need it and death to others who are adverse to the Kingdom.

I noticed this in the hospital with my mother recently about the fragrance of life or death. As she is in her last days, when I put on worship music for her to listen to, there was a different reaction depending upon her nurse on staff. One nurse during the day was clearly offended and made it difficult for her to watch. My sister also then became uncomfortable to let her watch it as a result and turned on the news instead. At the same time, that night with the overnight nurse, my mom was listening to her favorite hymns and she started singing along. It was a completely different atmosphere and the nurse encouraged her as part of being comfortable. It became clear from these situations that one was saved and the other one was not.

We were made to be light in darkness as we shine from our hearts the glory of God that is seen in the face of Christ. When we turn to the Lord, He brings us along this path from glory to greater glory so we shine with His likeness and proclaim His goodness and triumph over all things. Where His Spirit is, there is freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17). And, it says that the Spirit of the Lord makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into His glorious image (2 Corinthians 3:18).

As we come to believe in Him, we have a new life in Him (2 Corinthians 5:17). We are no longer in bondage to the world and we are under His covenant promises. We begin to learn to live into this new life and find that this glory is put in jars of clay in our imperfections and lack in our own sufficiency.

We see this during trials which the Lord uses to bring forth greater and greater glory. It is the being pressed and knocked down that the glory grows. Paul says that our difficulties don’t destroy us but, through suffering, our bodies share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus can also be made visible (2 Corinthians 4:10).

2 Corinthians 2:8-9, ‘We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.”

Being crushed and pressed on every side did not stop Paul. It just made him more dependent upon God. He saw his greater purpose beyond it. Persecution and hardship cannot destroy us as we are already captive to a new hope. We have a whole new purpose in Him. We no longer live for ourselves but for Him. Because of this, trouble is seen with a different light. Paul notes that realizing his responsibility as an ambassador for Christ and to put Him on display, they worked hard to persuade others.

Ultimately, knowing we must all stand before the Lord and be judged for our time on earth, Paul was wanting to spend his time glorifying Christ in all circumstances. He worked harder than anyone and pressed in to accomplish the purposes of the Lord in sharing the gospel.

This is opposite of what we see in Christianity today in many circles. Too many times, it is about being comfortable and successful rather than laboring to accomplish the Lord’s purposes. If things are not going our direction, we wonder if we are in God’s will. Like the Israelites standing before the Promised Land, we doubt and hesitate, often wanting to turn back when it seems beyond us.

I can be like this as well. When hardship hits, I frequently want to turn back. I notice my uncomfortability and want to shut down, turn back or just sit down awhile. Yet, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6:3-5, “We live in such a way that no one will stumble because of us, and no one will find fault with our ministry. In everything we do, we show that we are true ministers of God. We patiently endure troubles and hardships and calamities of every kind. We have been beaten, been put in prison, faced angry mobs, worked to exhaustion, endured sleepless nights, and gone without food.”

For Paul, enduring the calamities and difficulties were proof that they were true ministers of God. They were not in it for recognition or to be seen by others, but to make Christ known so that others would believe. And it was the difficulties that purified their intentions, grew their faith, and caused them to depend upon the Lord so that they would be empowered by His Spirit rather than operating out of their own strength.

In Isaiah 30:20, it says, “Thou the Lord gave you adversity for food and suffering for drink, he will still be with you to teach you. You will see your teacher with your own eyes. Your own ears will hear him. Right behind you a voice will say, ‘This is the way you should go,’ whether to the right or the left.”

We know that when we endure difficulty, it not only purifies our motives and causes us to depend greater on the Lord, but He is with us in it. His promise is that we will hear His voice leading us. He will guide us in the midst of it and tell us the right way to go. We do not need to figure out how we got in or how we will get out of our situation. We need only hold His hand through it and let Him lead.

Surrendering our will and letting Him lead is not always easy. It requires us to have faith. 2 Corinthians 13:5 says to examine ourselves to see if our faith is genuine. In the midst of our difficulty, do we know that Jesus is among us, sees us and is with us, if not, we have failed the genuine test of faith.

Just recently my mom has taken a downturn in her health. She first had bloody noses for two weekends that were so bad that she had pools of blood and almost lost her life to them. Then a few weekends later, she fell and hurt herself. Fortunately, she did not break any bones from it. But then the following week she fell much harder. She broke multiple bones and had to have hip surgery.

She had to have the surgery due to pain. She survived the hip surgery but they told us that at her age, it was unlikely that she recovers from it. And even if she does, since her memory is not good, it is likely she gets up and falls again once she is healed.

It is not easy to know the direction to go. At one time, she wants to go home with the Lord and be done. Then another time, she wants to rehab and try getting better. While the doctors recommend hospice, she is able to make the decision herself so we are trusting it in the Lord’s and her hands. She has had several visions of heaven. Right after having these, she always says she wants to go home and hears Jesus welcoming her.

Today is the day of final decision. They will try PT with her one more time and make a determination if she can go to rehab. I trust that wherever it leads, she is in the Lord’s hands. I am at peace if she goes home and if she stays. The Lord is very much with her and peace is emanating from her. She is full of His glory and it feels she is being prepared for home. I love that she continues to have visions of heaven and seems to be invited home at every turn.

Paul says that we are like fragile clay jars that contain a great treasure. We have this light of glory shining in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Christ. This glory is a testimony that that when our tent is taken down (we die), we have new bodies, and the old will be swallowed up by life (2 Corinthians 5:1-5).

While our bodies go from life to death and decay, our spiritual life goes from death to life. We hold this incredible treasure inside us of His glory and it grows as we grow in the Lord. It is as our bodies fail us that the glory shines all the brighter. While we may lose physically, we gain spiritually. And as we mature in the Lord over our lives, we grow more in His image and glory.

I am proud of my mom for having faith and being at peace in the midst of so much loss. She is finishing strong. She has experienced loss after loss in the natural, but it has resulted in gain after gain spiritually as she has surrendered and allowed God to work out His purposes in her. Now as her health is failing, she again has a choice to become bitter or embrace what He is doing with joy and surrender.

I know however and whenever she chooses to go, the Lord will take her home in His arms. I had a dream some time ago about her dancing to the tune of ambulance sirens closely with Jesus. Recently, she has had occurrence after occurrence, but in my dream, then a door opened and her and Jesus danced through it and out to a place I could not see.

In 2 Corinthians 13:4, Paul says to that when we are weak, like Christ was when He was on the cross, we will also be alive with Him and will have His power. When we suffer, as we depend upon the Lord and trust Him, we are all the more empowered with His Spirit as a result. What this says is that the Lord uses difficulty and suffering in our flesh to strengthen us spiritually to be more fully alive to Him and His power. We can trust that our weakness will lead to spiritual richness. Our death to our flesh, will lead to abounding spiritual life.
Lord, thank you that you never leave us or forsake us. Thank you that nothing of our suffering goes to waste and that you take us from glory to glory in a triumphal procession of victory.