We have received a ministry that through the mercy of God can bring an everyday, ordinary believer into an experience of the glory of God that is greater than Moses’ experience of God’s glory on Mt. Sinai. So don’t go thinking that anything, neither the searing emotional pain of having our motives questioned by some that we dearly love in Corinth, nor the cruel tortures our bodies have endured for the sake of Christ, can dim our enthusiasm or lessen our commitment to the proclamation of this glorious gospel.
This truth has gripped us so powerfully that it has caused us to abandon hidden, shameful practices in our private lives. And it has made it inconceivable to us to engage in any kind of mental or emotional manipulation in our public ministry. Not only that, it makes it impossible for us to water down the truth in an effort to escape from uncomfortable public disputes with the dupes that Satan is constantly using to attack the fundamental truths of the gospel. What we do is to simply and clearly proclaim God’s revelation of the gospel – and we speak each and every word as men who are consciously standing in the presence of the God who is listening to every word we say. We believe that what we are doing will bring a ringing endorsement of approval from the conscience of every person who has their heart and their mind right with God.
We conduct ourselves with such openness that the only way someone can fail to understand what we say is if they have that veil over the eyes of their hearts. This is what happens when those who reject the message hear it – their lives right now can best be described as a living death and in the life to come they will be cut off from God forever!
Satan is the god of this world. He blinds the hearts and minds of unbelieving people so that they can’t receive the inward enlightenment that comes from this inner revelation of the glory of Christ – and we should expect Christ to be radiant with the glory of God because He “looks” exactly like God.
Christ is exactly like God. When you are looking into the radiance of the glory of the Father what you are really seeing is the radiance of the glory of the Son.[1]
We are so overwhelmed with the glory of God that it would never even occur to us to somehow try and make the gospel be about us. No, we preach Christ Jesus as the One-who-must-be-obeyed-in-all-things.[2] And if you want to know where we fit into the equation, well, for the sake of obeying and serving Christ, we see ourselves as your servants and not as your masters.
In the beginning God said, “Let there be light!” And light came into existence! This is the same Person who spoke into the darkness of your heart and said, “Let the light of the glory of God as it radiates from the very face of Christ Jesus shine in this dark place.”
Can you grasp what I am trying to tell you? There was a physical manifestation of the glory of God on Mt. Sinai. There is an even greater spiritual manifestation of the glory of God that has taken place in your inner man. If you have the faith-vision to grasp this, that light shinning within you will gradually transform you more and more into the image of Jesus Christ.[3]
A Christian is a lot like a priceless jewel in a brown paper wrapper. You could never tell, by looking at the wrapping, that there was something priceless inside. Every Christian can and should be energized by God’s own infinite power being continuously released in his inner being.
This is the secret of our own endurance. We are under tremendous pressure, but we are not crushed by that pressure. We don’t always have a complete understanding of why God is allowing certain things to happen, nor are we always certain of what our next step should be, but this never leads us to despair.
We have endured horrible sufferings, but never once without a vivid awareness of Christ’s presence to comfort and sustain us through the whole ordeal.[4] We’ve endured cruel, physical abuse, but God hasn’t allowed them to kill us yet.[5]
Our lives have become an exhibit of the death and resurrection process. We constantly face physical death in the form of persecution. And by faith, on a daily basis, we embrace the power of Christ’s death and apply it to the power of sin as it operates in our bodies.[6] But we don’t stop there. In that same spirit of faith we also embrace the ultimate energy source[7] – the indestructible-life-ultimate-power that raised Jesus from the dead. This indestructible-life-ultimate-power works within us, empowering us to live the Christian life, and flows through us, enabling us to minister to you with true spiritual power.
Ultimately, our willingness to embrace death was a key part of the process that resulted in your spiritual life.
[1] “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature.” Hebrews 1:3
[2] It is extremely difficult to find a way to convey the concept of “lordship” to people living in Western Civilization at the beginning of the 21st Century. It is almost as if many people, even many Christians, have a veil over their hearts that makes it impossible for them to grasp the absolute authority of the Lord. So I have chosen to paraphrase Lord as “the One-who-must-be-obeyed-in-all-things.”
[3] See 2 Corinthians 3:18.
[4] “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.” Philippians 3:10 I believe this is a promise of a special manifestation of Christ’s presence to sustain us in the midst of persecution.
[5] “But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having won over the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. But while the disciples stood around him, he got up and entered the city.” Acts 14:19, 20
[6] “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Galatians 5:24
[7] If you follow the argument of Ephesians 1:19-23 the power that raised Christ from the dead and placed Him in the position of ultimate authority in the universe is the exact same power that is available to the Christian in living his daily life.
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