January 25

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. — 2 Cor 4:10 BSB

It is within this fragile, mortal body that both the death of Jesus and the life of Jesus are revealed. In our troubles, perplexities, and being cast down, we experience the dying of Jesus. But in not being distressed, not falling into despair, not feeling forsaken, and not being destroyed, we experience the life of Jesus. In the same body, we carry the reality of a dying Christ and a living Christ—Christ crucified in weakness, and Christ reigning in power at the right hand of God. To know these two truths is to know the power of Christ’s resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, those two divine blessings that Paul so deeply longed to experience.

This experiential knowledge—of Christ crucified and Christ risen—is the essence of the spiritual life of a child of God. To live is to live by faith in the Son of God. To live is to be baptized with the same Spirit that filled Paul when he said, “I am crucified with Christ—yet I live; not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

Christ’s present life at the right hand of God is the source and foundation of all our life here and now. “Because I live, you shall live also,” was His gracious promise while on earth, and He has ascended to fulfill that promise. He is our life, and His life must be manifested in our mortal flesh—manifest to us by the communication of light, life, liberty, and love, and manifest to others through the fruits of a life that adorns the gospel and walks in obedience to its precepts.