![]() ![]() I think it's maybe the greatest hymn ever written. Cousins extracted phrases out of the wonderful diary of the great old Scottish saint, Samuel Rutherford and put that marvelous, marvelous hymn together. Some of you know that great hymn, "The sands of time are sinking." Mrs. ![]() He is showing us that there is a grace of God far more exceedingly abundant than all that we can either ask or think. He mentions flesh once, and then dismisses it. So with all the greatness and all the pressure, he says it is possible to have this boundless joy. Yet here he is sending a letter of greeting and cheer to other people who should be writing letters to him. (We like the bonuses, but we're not too anxious to have the burdens, are we?) If you read the epistle carefully, you'll find that fourteen times he mentions "joy," and he was in a stinking hole of a prison that we wouldn't even put a dog in these days! No bed. I think Paul is actually saying here that in the greatest suffering you can have the greatest joy. For one thing, there is no mention of sin in this epistle. I lived with her for twenty years and never noticed one of those things he said she had! Because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Boy! Shakespeare couldn't have done better! She had eyes like stars. A fellow in our churchįell in love with my sister. Some of you ladies remember the first one you got. You know why? Because it is a love letter. That covers a lot of territory, doesn't it? The King James version, says "Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." I believe that's the territory in which he lived, and moved, and had his being. If you turn over to chapter 4 verse 6, this explains his life, I think. The thing that gripped me as I read it this week, Christ may be magnified,īut, he says, that Christ might be magnified IN MY BODY. (or as some put it by my body), whether it be by life, or by death." ".as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body Now I've come to this conclusion reading recently our verse in Phillipians, that the motivation of the apostle in his zigzag course - in prison, out of prison, in weariness, in fastings, in painfulness, in tribulations, in distress, in perils of his countrymen, in perils of the deep, in perils of robbers - the one thing that motivated him is here in this 20th verse: I thought that 14th verse, "For the love of Christ constraineth me," was the motivation, with the obligation to present Christ in all his majesty and glory. Then verse 14 expresses what I always considered to be the thing that really motivated him. "All roads lead to the judgment seat." Without exception. "All roads lead to the judgment seat." It's true. Â" We must all appear at the judgment seat of Christ.ĭear Keith Green said one day in my office, as we were talking about the roads, Â" Knowing the terror of the Lord we persuade men. Â" If we are absent from the body, we are present with the Lord. I used to think that in the second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 5, Paul gives a summary of his theology. Phillipians 1:20, "According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body." You're here: » Articles Home » Leonard Ravenhill » Christ Magnified in My Body - Part 1 ![]()
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