The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Wounds"
"When pains, problems, and perplexities present their challenges, we do well to consider, "How could it be otherwise in the world as it presently exists?"
Many historians of the Civil War consider Brigadier General Joshua L. Chamberlain (Union Army, USA) as the last casualty of the conflict. He died in 1914, 50 years after the war, from wounds received in 1864 during the Second Battle of St. Petersburg. Chamberlain lived a highly accomplished post-war life despite his sufferings, serving four terms as the governor of Maine, twelve years as president of Bowdoin College, and other positions of distinction throughout five decades of physical pain and difficulty. He frequently gave credit to the Lord Jesus Christ for his life and enduring, and died with the testimony of Christ as "my all sufficient Savior" on his lips.
"I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus" (Galatians 6:17).
Whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually, every born again believer in the Lord Jesus bears wounds because of His presence in us. Our spiritual enemies see to that, as allowed and sometimes even administered by God for reasons related to the fallen world in which we live. "We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). No believer would walk with God apart from the challenge and difficulty that confirms our present existence in a world that "lieth in wickedness" (I John 5:19). Trust and trouble presently walk hand in hand. "But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord: He is their strength in the time of trouble" (Psalm 37:39). Our flesh would overwhelm our spirits without the challenges of various modes and measures that remind us that "if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die, but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live" (Romans 8:13).
Like General Chamberlain, we are all wounded in some measure due to the fact of Christ's presence in our hearts and lives. The "man of sorrows" who faced His own personal challenges during an earthly lifetime now lives in us, replicating in our experience the realities He knew, and that will be known by those in which He lives and walks. "Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps" (Isaiah 53:3; II Peter 2:21). Indeed, when pains, problems, and perplexities present their challenges, we do well to consider, "How could it be otherwise in the world as it presently exists?" Our spiritual enemies hate the Christ who lives in our hearts as the Life of our lives. Moreover, God conveniently uses their attacks to fulfill sanctifying effects in us that cannot presently occur through the pleasant and the peaceful. Our wounds may also at times result from the promised chastening and scourging of love, administered by our Father who loves us enough to apply pain if it will keep us from embracing an alluring world of lies and deceptions (Hebrews 12:6; I Peter 4:1).
General Chamberlain lived most of his lifetime suffering from the wounds of an earthly conflict. However, our brother in Christ doubtless suffered far more from the wounds inflicted by the Heavenly conflict in which he was engaged as a believer. The same truth applies to all in whom Christ lives. Why do we face pains, problems, and perplexities? Again, how could it presently be otherwise? We do well to think spiritually regarding our challenges. God always has purpose in them, and regardless of how earthly and natural they may seem, all bear a far more significant and eternal meaning than we realize. Certainly, General Chamberlain's "all sufficient Savior" will lead us as He led our brother of old. Thereby, we will honor the One who still bears the tangible prints on His hands, feet, and side suffered when He won the conflict of the ages, and whereby our conflicts become the scene of His ongoing victory…
"As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
(Romans 8:36-39)
"For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
(II Corinthians 4:11)
Weekly Memory Verse
And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge, and in all judgment."
(Philippians 1:9)
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