(tm) God adds His strength to our weakness

The almighty authority and power of our Lord Jesus Christ flow from His crucifixion.

For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the Glory of God. For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inner man is renewed day by day. (II Corinthians 4:15,16)

The perishing of Paul’s outward man, as he gave his life to the will of the Lord Jesus, resulted in the Life of Jesus being made manifest in Paul’s physical body. The resurrection Life of Christ that was manifested in Paul brought the Glory of God to the listeners and has brought that same glory to those who have read Paul’s Epistles throughout the centuries of the Christian Era.

Divine Life was made available to other people through the "death" of the Apostle Paul. God’s Life must flow from someone’s death—death meaning the giving of our life and activities to the Life and activities of the Lord.

When Paul witnessed the Divine Life that was being revealed to others he was able to keep from fainting. Our determination to obey Christ is strengthened when we can see other people begin to partake of the Divine Glory.

Paul speaks of the second benefit—that of receiving God’s eternal strength such that we are able to gain dominion over the forces that would resist the doing of God’s will.

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)

The "weight" of glory referred to here is Paul’s house from Heaven, mentioned in Chapter Five of II Corinthians. Paul’s house is a vehicle of unimaginable power and authority, an eternal, incorruptible source to him of liberty in God, of breadth of service, of glory, of joy, of life.

When we respond properly to the afflictions that produce our death in Christ, weight is added to the house that will descend on us from Heaven at the time of the first resurrection from the dead.

Our willingness to abide with Christ in the furnace of testing causes a Divine purity and an overcoming strength to be developed in us. The Divine Gold in our being is purified, and the "bronze" in our personality, which results from the judgment of God that works in us, becomes pure and glowing.

Marvelous things happen to us in the furnace of tribulation, not the least of which are the companionship of the Son of God and the burning of our bonds.

Both fruitfulness and dominion result from our death in Christ.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. (John 12:24)

It is God’s way that we bear fruit through our death. There are many scriptural examples of the principle of life from death. The greatest example is that of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ did many miracles and taught truth as no other man before or since has taught it.

But it is from His death that the salvation of mankind has come.

Paul the Apostle ministered to people in what is now Turkey, Greece, and Italy. Several thousand people heard Paul teach and preach during his lifetime and witnessed the miracles that God performed by his hands.

But Paul’s knowledge of Christ that he recorded in his letters to the young churches has produced eternal life in millions upon unnumbered millions of souls. This knowledge of Christ resulted from Paul’s willingness to "fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church" (Colossians 1:24).

The sufferings associated with our consecration sometimes have to do with the bringing of life to other people. If we insist on serving Christ on our own terms, having our own way, refusing to deny ourselves at His request, we may pursue "Christian work" but we will "abide alone." We can only bring forth the fruit of Christ through our death in Christ.

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