We must realize we can face each day with God’s power and purpose. Nothing else will help us, and His grace is quite sufficient.

If there ever was a man who should have just given up, it was the Apostle Paul. His years were filled with intense problems and persecution. Look at the litany of difficulties he endured.

⁸ We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; ⁹ we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed. ¹⁰ We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be displayed in our body. ¹¹ For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’s sake, so that Jesus’s life may also be displayed in our mortal flesh. ¹² So then, death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4)

Look at the words he uses (and he was prone to reality, not exaggeration).

• afflicted in every way
• perplexed
• persecuted
• struck down
• always carrying the death of Jesus in our body
• always begin given over to death
• death works in us.

Pretty sad testimony, right? But that’s not the end of the story. Each of those maladies is followed by a statement of deliverance and victory. Paul faced his trials head-on, knowing there was no sugar-coating that would help. His answer to his afflictions was the power of God in Him that would sustain and lift and keep him. And the life of God in and through Him that continually gave him a higher purpose, i.e., the privilege of encouraging and helping others with God’s life. So, here was his great declaration:

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