'Experiencing His death and His resurrection'
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Our flesh is being brought low continually so we may experience the power of Christ’s resurrection. The "excellency of the power" of God keeps us from being distressed, from being in despair, from being destroyed. The Life of Jesus is being made manifest in our body provided we are walking in the Holy Spirit.
The Life of Jesus is being made manifest in our mortal flesh, and the resurrection Life that is in Him takes control of our personality, as our body experiences the death of the cross. The resurrection life that comes out of our "death" brings eternal life to other people. The overflow of the resurrection Life of Christ is brought to others now, during our pilgrimage and ministry on the earth.
Look at the extent to which the blessings of Christ have come to the world through the writings of the imprisoned Paul. To an even greater degree, the whole earth will be touched with the Life of God when the sons of God are raised up from their graves by His almighty power.
So then death worketh in us, but life in you. (II Corinthians 4:12)
Our hope is that we shall, at the glorious appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, be clothed with a body fashioned from resurrection life. We are pressing forward toward receiving our "house which is from heaven" (II Corinthians 5:2).
We must be made ready in our spiritual nature for such a gift. We are being prepared and strengthened for putting on the body of resurrection life by first learning, during our experiences now, how to live and act in the Spirit of God.
The relationship between our Christian discipleship now, and the receiving of the body of life when Jesus comes, is described in the last few verses of II Corinthians, Chapter Four, and the first ten verses of II Corinthians, Chapter Five.
Notice, first of all, the relationship between our outward troubles and the growth of the "inner man":
For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inner man is renewed day by day. (II Corinthians 4:16)
The outward man is perishing and the inner man is being renewed day by day. Death, and life. Death, and life. Death, and life. It is impossible to have the development of the inner man apart from the death of the outward man.
The outward man, our first personality, does not desire death. He fights against his demise. The outward man always is an enemy of the Spirit of God.
The new born-again personality rejoices in the will of God and is glad for the righteousness, peace, and joy that follow the chastening of the flesh.
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. (Hebrews 12:11)
If we give ourselves over to the will of God, not in passivity but in fervent seeking of God, resting in Him in the meantime, He will raise us up and deliver us from all our afflictions. Our attitude must hold steady on this one point: "We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead" (II Corinthians 1:9).
We do not trust in ourselves that we can do anything at all, particularly in the area of Christian service. We do know that God keeps on bringing us into weakness and that we must trust ourselves in increasing measure to His resurrection power and wisdom.
The more affliction God sends our way the greater the opportunity we have for experiencing His Glory and for the strengthening of the inner man, provided we respond to our affliction by allowing God to provide the solution to each problem.
There is a direct relationship between the problems and troubles we suffer in Christ and our inner preparation for receiving our "house that is from heaven." We can observe this relationship in the following verse:
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; (II Corinthians 4:17)
Affliction is much easier to bear when we learn to appreciate the fact that it is our trouble, perplexity, persecution, and being cast down that are working for us the "far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." By comparison our tribulations are momentary and light.
If we wish to be a "heavyweight" when Jesus appears we must continue to gaze at "the things which are not seen" so we can endure the afflictions into which the Holy Spirit leads us. The weight of the glory we will receive is related to the manner in which we respond to the afflictions.
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