Daily Devotional
Despaired Even Of Life? – Part 2
Text: 2 Corinthians 11:6
“Even though I am untrained in speech, yet I am not in knowledge. But we have been thoroughly manifested among you in all things.”
Message
Many of us so despair as to consider suicide an option, end of life but it is no option and must not be the case for a believer.
The thought and action to commit suicide is a sin, the taking of a life you did not make or give, it is an unworkable solution to a problem.
Truth is Christianity is not a tea party. If so Jesus would have told us. Rather Jesus said in this world we shall have tribulations and be killed, but be of good cheers for He has overcome the world and with Him we also will if you faint not in our Christian pilgrimage on earth. Let’s draw fro Apostle Paul.
In Acts 19, Luke vividly captures for us some of the Apostle Paul’s unpleasant experiences as he went about life preaching the Gospel. He talked about his personal risks and imprisonments, the riot orchestrated by Demetrius the silversmith, and, in the 22nd chapter, how a commander ordered that he be taken into the barracks to be flogged and interrogated.
No wonder Paul himself recounts, “…in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft” (2 Corinthians 11:23). In his first epistle to the Corinthian church, Paul recalls his experience at Ephesus and said, “…I have fought with beasts at Ephesus…” (1 Corinthians 15:32).
In his second epistle, Paul narrated how in Asia, it became so bad that he felt he and his companions were on death row, but graciously had supernatural deliverance (2 Corinthians 1:8-9).
This same Gospel has been committed to your trust; will you take it lightly or put your all into it?
Would you stick out your neck to preach the Gospel to your co-workers or business associates even if it means losing your job or losing out on business contracts you’ve so much desired?
How about your family members who aren’t yet born again? Would you go all out for them, or remain quiet to avoid being hated, disliked or ostracized?
Will you be number among those that followed Christ Jesus even in the face of death and despair or those who for the fear of losing the relationships they’ve built, will never witness to their friends.
What you are despairing on, is a testimony of the power of the gospel in exhibition and watched from your response.
You’re a witness to your generation, and the Lord will hold you responsible as their witness.
You’ve got to be committed to bringing salvation to those in your world.
What you’re into isn’t about saving your head; it’s not about the comforts of life or the benefits you get out of it, no!
You’re not into this for what any man can give you, but for the honor and glory of Christ the Lord.
There should be no limits to how far we are willing to go for this priceless Gospel that has been committed to our trust. We are to preach it boldly in the power of the Spirit, delivering many from the kingdom of darkness into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, in Jesus’ Name for, “And all things [are] of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)
1 Corinthians 9:16-17 says, ‘For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! 17 For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation [of the gospel] is committed unto me.”
May God help us.