To Encourage You

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 “So we do not lose heart. Thought our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

This morning as a went to the Lord in prayer, my mind went to so many of my friends, family members, and acquaintances that are suffering.  I thought of those suffering from various forms of cancer.  Others are in chronic pain. Some are facing surgery or various painful diagnostic tests.  Others are suffering from diseases like Parkinson’s, or genetic conditions that have greatly impacted them from birth. Some are afflicted with the dementia that so often touches people in their later years.  Many of these people are Christians.  In fact, many people, especially those who live under hostile governments, are suffering because they are Christians.  I often think about the believers facing hard labor, starvation, and other miserable conditions in North Korean prison camps.  Sometimes it just doesn’t seem to make any sense.  For unbelievers, it most certainly doesn’t make any sense. How can it?  What hope is there with a diagnosis of a terminal disease for one who thinks that that is all there is?  Is it any wonder that some people facing such hardships choose to end their own lives?  But it’s in suffering that the one who believes the things that God has told us in His Word has great hope. 

One such message is found in the passage above from 2 Corinthians 4.  It tells us that “our outer self is wasting away.”  That’s the way it’s been since the Fall.  It’s because of the sin that has come into the world that all suffering that there is, is.  Its effects are seen in every single person’s life in one way or another.  Ultimately, the wages of that sin will end in physical death (Romans 6:23).  But, for the believer, wonderfully, that’s not all there is!  You see, God’s Word tells us that in spite of this truth about the “outer self,” there is another truth about the “inner self.”  We are told that no matter what is going on in the physical body of a Christian, there is an inner “renewal,” a spiritual vitality that starts weak but ends in great strength.  Paul, who suffered as much or more than any other believer who has ever lived, put it this way in his letter from his prison cell to the church at Philippi: “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).  Wonderfully, in his words above to the church at Corinth, he lets us in on one of God’s secrets, i.e., our current sufferings, no matter how great, are but “light and momentary” in comparison to the “eternal weight of glory” that this very suffering is preparing us for.  He lets us in on the truth that no matter what we may be suffering at this moment, it is a transient situation. It is going to pass away.  But the glory that awaits us will never end. 

Jesus staked his reputation on the promise that, in the end, come what may, “not a hair of your head will perish” (Luke 21:18). Paul tells us that each and every believer is destined for a new body.  He describes the death and coming resurrection of every Christian’s body in this way in 1 Corinthians 15: “What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body . . . Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shallalso bear the image of the man of heaven.”

Of course, “the man of heaven” is our Lord Jesus Christ. He is One Who is “able to sympathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrew 4:15) because He was subjected to the very same suffering that we are.  But he conquered it all in the resurrection, and He now sits in glory at the Father’s right hand.  And His promise to all that would follow Him is that one day “we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2). There is coming a day soon when we will live forever in glory with Him.  And so, because of Jesus, we know that we do not suffer nor do we “grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Rather, we have a great and eternal hope.  It is a hope that can sustain us come what may. It is a hope that though our “outer self” may be wasting away, renews our “inner self” day by day. It’s a hope that assures us that “after (we) have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called (us) to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish (us). To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen” (1 Peter 5:10-11).