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This Week’s Scripture & Reflection: II Corinthians 4:8-10
Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday are arguably two of the most prominent days of commemoration and celebration among the body of believers and followers of Jesus Christ! On these two days, we remember and reflect on two seemingly isolated events in the history of our faith: the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! We often celebrate them as isolated events because we were not present when they occurred. However, both of these events are actually experiences that we carry and live out as believers every day!
In II Corinthians 4, the apostle Paul offers the Corinthian believers profound revelation regarding Jesus’ death: we are “always carrying around in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the [resurrection] life of Jesus also may be shown in our body” (v. 10). As believers and followers of Jesus Christ, we carry the ultimate demonstration of obedience to God in our born-again vessels! We carry the most gruesome yet beautiful demonstration of unconditional love in our regenerated bodies! We share in Jesus’ death on the cross, and in turn, we die to our former selves so that He might live in us and that we might live by faith in Him (cf. Galatians 2:20).
This verse should serve as a perpetual reminder to deny ourselves, to take up our cross daily, and to follow Jesus, for His sacrificial death is not isolated from our everyday lives as believers! It is because He died and rose again that we now possess life eternal, even now here in the Earth! It is by constantly carrying and conforming ourselves to Jesus’ death that His life becomes more evident in us! And surely nothing could be more pleasing to the Father than seeing His children look like His Son!