Since God has so generously let us in on what he is doing, we’re not about to throw up our\u00a0hands and walk off the job just because we run in occasional hard times.<\/p>\n
Good Monday Morning to the week 44\/2018<\/p>\n
Eugene Peterson (1932-2018) has completed his \u201clong obedience in the same direction.\u201d The Presbyterian pastor, best known for authoring The Message Bible, died October 22nd at the age of 85.\u00a0\u00a0I read Peterson’s paraphrased Bible because I find it accessible even poetic.\u00a0 In The Message,<\/i>\u00a0the words come nearer and find new meaning through being more accessible to the modern reader.<\/p>\n
I’ve just read two biographies of people going through immense trails even torture in their lives. I also think of a lot of you in the context you are in and know of many in situations of great adversity and challenge. I am greatly inspired by the verses
\nof 2 Corinthians 4: 7-12 starting with the translation from The Message:<\/p>\n
If you only look at\u00a0us<\/i>, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That\u2019s to prevent anyone from confusing God\u2019s incomparable power with us. As it is, there\u2019s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we\u2019re not much to look at. We\u2019ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we\u2019re not demoralized; we\u2019re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we\u2019ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn\u2019t left our side; we\u2019ve been thrown down, but we haven\u2019t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us\u2014trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us\u2014he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus\u2019 sake, which makes Jesus\u2019 life all the more evident in us. While we\u2019re going through the worst, you\u2019re getting in on the best!<\/p>\n
Then there are times I love the directness of KJV in Verse 7-8: Or the Passion Translation of Verse 7-9: Or the Interlinear to the verses 7-9: The splendor of the gold in these vessels, eclipsed in the minds of bystanders stand as symbols of the deity. As the vessel carrying the treasure that mediates the vision of Christ in his own ministry, Paul implies, it is actually preferable, even necessary that his bodily presence be weak, in order that the extraordinary power of the treasure he carries might be seen to be from God and not from himself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fitzgerald quotes Seneca:<\/p>\n If you see a man who is unterrified in the midst of dangers, untouched by desires, happy in adversity, peaceful amid the storm, \u2026 will not a feeling of reverence for him steal over you? Will you not say, \u201cThis quality is too great and too lofty to be regarded as resembling this petty body in which it dwells? A divine power has descended upon that man,\u201d \u2026 A thing like this cannot stand upright unless it be propped by the divine.<\/p>\n Wishing you a blessed week!<\/p>\n Philemon<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since God has so generously let us in on what he is doing, we’re not about to throw up our\u00a0hands and walk off the job just because we run in occasional hard times. Good Monday Morning to the week 44\/2018 Eugene Peterson (1932-2018) has completed his \u201clong obedience in the same direction.\u201d The Presbyterian pastor, … <\/p>\n
\nBut we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.\u00a0<\/span>We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;\u00a0<\/span>Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;<\/span><\/p>\n
\nWe are like common clay jars that carry this glorious treasure within, so that the extraordinary overflow of power will be seen as God\u2019s, not ours.<\/span>\u00a0<\/sup>Though we experience every kind of pressure, we\u2019re not crushed. At times we don\u2019t know what to do, but quitting is not an option.\u00a0<\/span>We are persecuted by others, but God has not forsaken us. We may be knocked down, but not out.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nWe know the treasures this in earthen vessels that the surpassingness of the power may be from God and not from us. In every way being hard pressed but not being crushed, being perplexed but not despairing, being persecuted but not being forsaken, being struck down but not being destroyed.<\/p>\n