It's Not About You!

A Poetic Meditation, adapted from 2 Cor. 3&4, by Gary L. Cox

Do you feel the need, as if beginning anew, to get approval and explain yourself?

Do you feel people expect 'letters of recommendation' to approve you?

Let the changed lives of others be your letters of recommendation.

These letters are written sincerely in your heart,

Yet they are visibly known or 'read' by all men.

A person's genuine faith is plainly recognized.

Let visible fruit in others be the letter of Christ that tells where you have served.

Letters written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God.

Written not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.

This is kind of confidence we have through Christ in God.

Not that you are worthy or of great ability so that you think of any thing as of yourself;

Your worth and ability come from God.

God makes you an able minister of the New Testament;

Not of the letter (OT), but of the Spirit (NT):

For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life, the radiant glory of man.

Serving God is glorious!  Always seek after the greater glory.

If the O.T. ministry of death (the Law of Moses engraved in stone) was glorious.…

…Shall not the minstry of the Spirit be far more glorious?

For if the ministry of condemnation has glory,

How much more does the ministry of righteousness exceed in glory?

For the Law of Moses had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelled it.

And if that which is done away was glorious,

How much more that which remains is glorious!

Seeing that we have such hope for eternal glory in earthly ministry,

Speak openly and boldly, with much assurance.

Let us not serve as Moses, who put a veil over his face,

that the children of Israel could not see the fading glory of that which is abolished:

But their minds were blinded:

For still there remains the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament;

which veil is done away in Christ.

Even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart.

And when they shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.

Now the Lord is that Spirit who takes away the veil:

And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

But we all, as with an open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord,

Are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Therefore seeing we have this glorious ministry,

As you have received mercy, faint not to serve those who need mercy now!

Renounce the hidden things of dishonesty.

Don't walk in craftiness, nor handle the word of God deceitfully.

Make the truth plainly visible in your life, this is how you commend yourself.

You will be plainly recognized by every man's conscience in the sight of God.

Understand… if the Gospel be hid, it is hidden to them that are lost:

The god of this world blinds the minds of those who believe not, otherwise,

The light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, would shine unto them.

Preach not yourself, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and yourself others' servant for Jesus' sake.

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in your heart,

to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

You have His glorious treasure in an earthen vessel,

That the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of you.

You can be troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair;

Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,

that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in your body.

We who 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 works in you, but life in others.

You have the same spirit of faith, according as it is written,

"I believed, and therefore have I spoken";

You also believe, therefore, speak!

Remember, He who raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up you also by Jesus,

And shall present you together with those you served.

It's not about you!

Endure all things are for their sakes.

The abundant grace of God will be plainly recognized,

And be the source of the thanksgiving of many.

Serve in such a way that your labor might redound to the glory of God.

For this cause you must not faint!

Though your outward man perishes,

Yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

Today's affliction is truly light, and is but for a moment,

However, it works for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;

While you look not at the things which are seen,

But at the things which are not seen:

For the things which are seen are temporal;

But the things which are not seen are eternal.