When we first believe in Jesus, repent of all our sins to Jesus, we are grateful and even giddy.  Our burdens of anxiety, self-loathing, distrust, overthinking, and fear are lifted from our shoulders.  We walk more easily and talk more freely.  God’s Love overwhelms us and lifts us to higher thinking.  God’s Holy Spirit comes and takes up residence in our being.  We have a New Counselor who guides us.  Our new life has a new perspective that is super positive and full of hope.  We have and hold the hope of eternal life!  What more could we ask for in this life and the bonus promise of what comes next?

The new cry of a new believers’ hearts boldly declare, “I want to be like Jesus.”  But the new believer does not yet realize what that means until life turns from rosy to really hard.  Troubles still come that exasperate us.  People you thought were your friends for life betray you.  You excitedly tell people who Jesus is with how He worked in your life to save you and people not only laugh at you they work hard to tear down your reputation for being this new person living and working among them. 

Maybe that’s why the command from God through Jesus, telling us to “go and make disciples, baptizing them” also includes “teaching them”.  We must tell the whole story of what it means to be like Jesus.  “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”—Jesus, John 16:33

To be like Jesus includes suffering in this world—like Jesus did to save us.  But we are overcomers with Jesus!

Paul is weary.  His prose is full of pain.  But we also feel the love of Christ in Paul as he writes openly to those he cares for deeply.  He cares us so much, in fact, that he is compelled to passionately warn them about falling for “pseudo-servants” who are not trying to be like Jesus but instead doing things for their own self-serving interests.  They are fakes.  Paul is honest before God and with His people. 

2 Corinthians 11, The Message

Pseudo-Servants of God

^1-3 Will you put up with a little foolish aside from me? Please, just for a moment. The thing that has me so upset is that I care about you so much—this is the passion of God burning inside me! I promised your hand in marriage to Christ, presented you as a pure virgin to her husband. And now I’m afraid that exactly as the Snake seduced Eve with his smooth tongue, you are being lured away from the simple purity of your love for Christ.

^4-6 It seems that if someone shows up preaching quite another Jesus than we preached—different spirit, different message—you put up with him quite nicely. But if you put up with these big-shot “apostles,” why can’t you put up with simple me? I’m as good as they are. It’s true that I don’t have their voice, haven’t mastered that smooth eloquence that impresses you so much. But when I do open my mouth, I at least know what I’m talking about. We haven’t kept anything back. We let you in on everything.

^7-12 I wonder, did I make a bad mistake in proclaiming God’s Message to you without asking for something in return, serving you free of charge so that you wouldn’t be inconvenienced by me? It turns out that the other churches paid my way so that you could have a free ride. Not once during the time I lived among you did anyone have to lift a finger to help me out. My needs were always supplied by the believers from Macedonia province. I was careful never to be a burden to you, and I never will be, you can count on it. With Christ as my witness, it’s a point of honor with me, and I’m not going to keep it quiet just to protect you from what the neighbors will think. It’s not that I don’t love you; God knows I do. I’m just trying to keep things open and honest between us.

^12-15 And I’m not changing my position on this. I’d die before taking your money. I’m giving nobody grounds for lumping me in with those money-grubbing “preachers,” vaunting themselves as something special. They’re a sorry bunch—pseudo-apostles, lying preachers, crooked workers—posing as Christ’s agents but sham to the core. And no wonder! Satan does it all the time, dressing up as a beautiful angel of light. So it shouldn’t surprise us when his servants masquerade as servants of God. But they’re not getting by with anything. They’ll pay for it in the end.

Many a Long and Lonely Night

^16-21 Let me come back to where I started—and don’t hold it against me if I continue to sound a little foolish. Or if you’d rather, just accept that I am a fool and let me rant on a little. I didn’t learn this kind of talk from Christ. Oh, no, it’s a bad habit I picked up from the three-ring preachers that are so popular these days. Since you sit there in the judgment seat observing all these shenanigans, you can afford to humor an occasional fool who happens along. You have such admirable tolerance for impostors who rob your freedom, rip you off, steal you blind, put you down—even slap your face! I shouldn’t admit it to you, but our stomachs aren’t strong enough to tolerate that kind of stuff.

^21-23 Since you admire the egomaniacs of the pulpit so much (remember, this is your old friend, the fool, talking), let me try my hand at it. Do they brag of being Hebrews, Israelites, the pure race of Abraham? I’m their match. Are they servants of Christ? I can go them one better. (I can’t believe I’m saying these things. It’s crazy to talk this way! But I started, and I’m going to finish.)

^23-27 I’ve worked much harder, been jailed more often, beaten up more times than I can count, and at death’s door time after time. I’ve been flogged five times with the Jews’ thirty-nine lashes, beaten by Roman rods three times, pummeled with rocks once. I’ve been shipwrecked three times, and immersed in the open sea for a night and a day. In hard traveling year in and year out, I’ve had to ford rivers, fend off robbers, struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I’ve been at risk in the city, at risk in the country, endangered by desert sun and sea storm, and betrayed by those I thought were my brothers. I’ve known drudgery and hard labor, many a long and lonely night without sleep, many a missed meal, blasted by the cold, naked to the weather.

^28-29 And that’s not the half of it, when you throw in the daily pressures and anxieties of all the churches. When someone gets to the end of his rope, I feel the desperation in my bones. When someone is duped into sin, an angry fire burns in my gut.

^30-33 If I have to “brag” about myself, I’ll brag about the humiliations that make me like Jesus. The eternal and blessed God and Father of our Master Jesus knows I’m not lying. Remember the time I was in Damascus and the governor of King Aretas posted guards at the city gates to arrest me? I crawled through a window in the wall, was let down in a basket, and had to run for my life.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

When we are “at the end of our rope”, bone weary and desperate, angry when the devil takes those we love away from knowing and following Jesus, reach out for the hand of God who knows our every pain and cares for us.  He knows the heartache when our beloved fall for the fakes for they are HIS beloved as well. 

Don’t get hung up on the honesty of Paul.  We all suffer in different ways on this earth. The crazy Corinthians needed to hear what Paul had to say.  Stuff was happening that would chill our bones! 

Today, there are many who are still persecuted on this earth for believing and following Jesus.  In our part of the country, we might be mocked and betrayed but we are rarely beaten and jailed for knowing and following Jesus.  That being said, we must realize that suffering, tests, and trials are a part of life for all people.  Like Paul, I would rather know Jesus, strive to be like Jesus, and grow in my love for Jesus through the sufferings of earth even if that means I am humiliated for following Him.  He is my hope of eternal life!  I know it will be worth it all when I see Christ!

We must read to the very end of Paul’s message to get to the good stuff what he truly believes.  “If I have to “brag” about myself, I’ll brag about the humiliations that make me like Jesus. 

Paul will also teach the Philippians the Truth of what it means to follow Jesus AND share in His sufferings to be more and more like Jesus:

“I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” Philippians 3:10-11

Paul knows he is consistently growing to be more and more like Jesus but he has not “arrived” at perfection—only Jesus is perfection. Even though bone weary, he will not give up telling people what he does know so others will not fall away from Christ.  “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 3:12-14

Be honest, press on, in Jesus Name.  I have discovered in my own life, that when I am bone weary from suffering loss or watching others I love be duped and fall away from believing in Jesus; coming before God with honest humility becomes the right posture for God to do His best work in me!

Lord,

Thank you for saving our souls and making us whole be sending people into our lives at various seasons and stages of our growth, at just the right time, to “teach” us the right way to go in the ways that please you and give you glory. Thank you for hearing our cries for help in suffering and shouts of praise in good times and bad.  I will trust in you for life because you are Life!

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen