- 144. Life Works
2 Corinthians 4:11-12 For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you.
Life works in you. This is the promise. Eternal Life, the life of God, is working in us when the old self dies. Our mortal flesh, the sinful old man subject to Death because of Sin, houses the life of Jesusas jars of clay hold a beautiful treasure. This treasure is the life of Jesus. He lives in us and He is life for us. His life is manifest through us.
This new life is working: the Life works a new life in us continually in place of the old sinful self; the Life is working out of in actual daily life and behavior; the Life is working an eternal hope and a permanent joy; the Life is working to gradually transformthe soul with a New Life, a life that does good works and avoids sin. We need to believe that the promise is being fulfilled because often we do not see the improvement and change that is occurring in the inward man; and we do not see the outward evidence.
Since we are dissatisfied with a lack of growth we attempt by human efforts at self-improvement; we are deceiving into thinking that I can stop sinning and do better if I just try harder, work harder, and employ the proper steps to improvement. But I cannot improve the mortal flesh. Nothing I do will effect any real change; frustration leads to guilt and shame and giving up on God. But the frustration should lead me to repentance and faith in the gospel. Doing just this will lead to the death of the self. This kind of repentance and faith is never-ending; it is never finished. Thus I am delivered unto death, unto the death of Christ as my only hope and to my own death for Jesus’ sake. I do not want to die; I do not want to die to self, but this promise that life works in me gives me faith to be changed by faith from the inside. Then my death and Jesus’ life brings the positive change I always wanted.Continually hearing the Gospel also gives me the patience to wait for the Holy Spirit to do His work. I take hold of the promise: the life of Jesus in me really works.