Spiritual Strength For Each Day
“It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him” (2 Timothy 2:11).
Where our ego is concerned, with its emotional outbursts, its inclinations and desires, Paul had another text that he had experienced in his own life, “To die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). This means that every opportunity the Lord gives us to prove that we are crucified with Him is our gain. Every insult, every misinterpretation of our motives, every time we are left out or set aside, is the time for the application of the death of Jesus on our personal life. We are certainly all in agreement that the death of the Lord Jesus, the fact that the “Lord of glory” was crucified, was the greatest injustice in all of history. But the death by crucifixion was the revelation of God’s justice. This goes against our way of thinking. But this is God’s way for us too, if we are following in Jesus’ footsteps. By suffering injustice (and we all do if we are servants of the Lord), the death of Jesus is revealed in our lives. “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
