“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” 2 Corinthians 4:16
September 13, 2022
Do you need some encouragement? We all do. Even the apostle Paul with his dramatic conversion, having seen the resurrected Jesus, and his undaunted courage in the face of continual opposition to the gospel. The reason Paul said, “we do not lose heart” (2 Cor. 4:1, 16) was because the Jews, his own people, by and large, were rejecting the good news about their Messiah, Jesus Christ. Perhaps you are at a point in your own life where the accumulation of disappointments, losses and perceived set backs are threatening your loss of will to keep on keeping on in joyful service for Christ. Discouragement is the suburbs of depression and you don’t want to go there. The counsel we need is bound up in a contrast, namely, that the seasons of suffering in this life are outweighed by the divine help of the Holy Spirit and the hope of heaven. Suffering can indeed take its toll, but the transforming work of God in our lives makes us grow stronger in spite of physical weaknesses. Our feeble bodies and loss of physical energy doesn’t tell the whole story. We are to be spiritually energized as we find ways to keep on spreading the gospel. Dear Christian, though physically we are not what we used to be, spiritually we are not what we used to be but for the better, because God’s Spirit is changing us into greater Christ-likeness. H