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- Written by: Don Goulding
[We are] always carrying around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our body. (2 Corinthians 4:10)
Life and death are two great enemies, and my body is their battleground. They are both inside me, plotting the demise of one another. Only one can win for eternity.
Wars are won by a series of victorious battles, and triumph only comes to me as I choose life in the daily skirmishes. That sounds simple enough but death is a wily enemy. It flays living gifts and pulls on their skin to pose as life. Family, jobs, food—any day I concentrate on a gift more than on the Giver, then death has won.
The secret power to win this war is found in the death of Jesus.
Jesus’s death was not death to life, it was death to death. He died to defeat death at the final resurrection, and now in my person. I am to carry his death to death and apply it to whatever opposes God’s kingdom.
Pride will never make it into God’s presence, so if I humble myself now, then death dies and life lives.
No bitterness is permitted into the City of God, so by forgiving others now, death perishes and life rises.
Like Paul before me, I want to fight my battles well. I want to carry the death of Jesus with me.
For today, it's enough if I can remember death to death equals real life.
Prayer: Jesus, help me carry your death to the things of death.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
For who concedes you any superiority? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as though you did not? (1 Corinthians 4:7)
Five Africans and I were stuffed into a smallish motorcar in southern Nigeria. We plunged over jungle ruts that became a single track. The front bumper parted eight foot tall sword grass like the Red Sea. When we came to a wide river, I thought our trip must end, but we hailed a dugout canoe and paddled on. On the other shore, we abandoned our shoes and slashed our way through an emerald forest with a machete for another hour.
The destination was the palm thatched village of Ndinkasi, where they had little value for modernization, money, or modesty. The tribal elders informed me that no white man had ever been in their village. They treated me like royalty with long stares and great respect.
Many are the times when I have observed missionaries playing into the reverence the poor give them. I have succumbed to the temptation of that pedestal myself. It’s cultural centric snobbery at its worst when we claim superiority because of our manufactured possessions, that rot even as we hold them. Western affluence overrates temporal comforts and discounts the unencumbered life that waits for eternal blessings.
The joy in the heart of an African child is far more significant to God than the ambition of an upwardly progressive materialist. He applauds the one and temporarily abides the other. The children who ran up to touch my white skin and giggle had a beautiful existence to which I could only aspire.
It was only with the deepest admiration that I humbly offered those villagers the one treasure that would complete an already rich life—Jesus. I had nothing else to give.
Prayer: Holy Jesus, may I never claim to have anything except you.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
In fact, if they had been thinking of the land that they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they aspire to a better land, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11:15-16)
In Pismo Beach, California, my mouth hung open as every eucalyptus twig quivered with orange and black wings. Thousands of monarch butterflies rested from their transit. It’s a natural spectacle that should be on every bucket list.
The monarchs’ annual journey is called the miracle migration because they fly from the Sierra Madre mountains of central Mexico. Many cross the Gulf of Mexico devoid of directional markers. Subject to storms and predators, they travel thousands of miles to reach Canada and the eastern United States. Most die en route only to have their offspring undergo metamorphoses, then continue the parents’ journey. Scientists have puzzled for years over this instinct to return to a home they have never known.
God also placed a drive in his human children that makes us hunger for a home we have yet to know. My Christian predecessors moved in the right direction, but they never reached paradise during their earthly sojourn. Now it’s my turn to take up the migration. I must reach home with Jesus or die pushing in that direction.
My heart yearns for my eternal home with a desire that neither loss nor earthly blessing can overcome. I watch a loved one dragged off by cancer and I pine for home myself. I lose my livelihood and it only serves to pull my soul toward home. I lie on a beach in Hawaii and it’s not enough, I long to go home. The homeward draw is more powerful than all temporal distractions, good and evil.
As long as there is a twitch of strength in me, I will press toward the goal of my heart. I must get home.
Prayer: Beloved Jesus, I hurt for wanting to be at home in your city.