All Sons & Daughters – For Your Glory & My Good

I am not too sure why I think that I will be in glory more than I will be in suffering.

But as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities,  beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger;  by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left;  through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true;  as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed;  as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything. – 2 Corinthians 6:4-10  ESV

When was the last time that someone gloried in me – cannot say I remember. But over the past month, I can remember clearly that individuals have tried to label me with a dishonouring report. Basically I have been slandered, my motives were called into question and my name aspersed.  I have been left to feel that I am a deceiver and an imposter. So how do I go forward trying to continue in commend myself as a minister of God? For starters, I do not return the slander, I manifest a Christian spirit and if possible, live down the accusations and if also if possible, doing good to those who have done me wrong. If one has gone through this kind of pain, you will note that this is more difficult to endure than pain you have experienced in your body and therefore more difficult to bring out a Christian spirit. To my human nature, to have my name slandered or cast out as evil when I am only conscious of my desire to do good, is difficult. Now they did call Jesus the master of the house of Beelzebub, and I suppose than it is sufficient for me to expect the same. What a place to find the opportunity of showing the true excellency of the Christian spirit and it gives me the inexpressible privilege of being like Christ – as He was in His suffering and in the moral excellence of character. If I am called to be His disciple then I should be willing to be anything if it will make me like my Redeemer – whether it be in suffering or in glory.

And I think to myself, how I have allowed myself to be unequally yoked to find myself in these kinds of situations.

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?  What accord has Christ with Belial?^[b] Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?  What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. – 2 Corinthians 6:14-16  ESV

I am continually called to come apart and to separate from this world as Jesus did. I look at my milestones of following Jesus and one of them is having a heart and all of its desires severed from the world.