4:1 God provides. He establishes, strengthens, guides and supports you. Paul is full of faith because he is aware of how much has been consistently provided to him. Moreover, God gives us purpose and the tools and wherewithal to fulfill it. Paul does not grow discouraged because God is purposeful and will never neglect to utilize His children in His blessed plan for humanity.
4:2 Paul and the apostles were humble ministers. They spoke of this philosophy throughout the regions of the world because they compassionately believed that all people could benefit from these natural truths. The gifts given to Paul by God had garnered him fame and even reverence but Paul never accepted any of it. Paul's gift from God was the gift that was the opportunity to know and share His love.
It's important that we use our gifts and talents for good and humbly. Remember that God creates rather than takes. As His children, we have the opportunity to create with our specific purposes. To create joy, to create opportunity, to create laughter, and justice and peace in places those things did not exist before us.
4:3-4 God is fair. He does not impose His philosophy on anyone. We have choice here, but God's children realize that "here" is not the only place there is. God's children's perception is broadened spiritually and therefore they are able to comprehend more deeply than those who neglect or reject God. It's not a reward for God's children and neither is it a punishment for others. When a person thinks more deeply than this superficial life on earth, their perception becomes keen in observing how this life is tethered to another. A spiritual life. Therefore this book is opened, unveiled and offers lessons inaccessible to those who would find no value in it.
4:5-6 Paul takes no credit for his work. Even though every moment of his life was devoted to fulfilling his purpose given by God, Paul retains humility. Paul remembers that he was led, he was protected, he was supported, he was gifted, loved and comforted. Paul remembers the difference between life without trust in God and life with trust in God and it causes the wholehearted realization that God has been prominent in his life. God has enabled his life and everything and everyone in it. Every entrance into joy, every escape from sorrow.
Life without God was a moonless night but through spirituality Paul awakened to the Sun. He is ever-aware of the constantly Light provided by God.
4:7 We are strengthened by our humility. Arrogance clouds judgement, ruins and misses opportunity. It is a treasure that our ability and achievement come from God because His is a freely given, ever-flowing source. It adapts to our individual lives and forms intricately to what we need.
4:8 Our spirits are rugged, resilient, beautiful and agile. With God we can learn from, grow from and survive every turbulence. Not only do we escape from our turmoil but God also manipulates it in our favor so that we grow from it. We become wiser, stronger, and faster than what ails or taunts us.
4:9 As God's children, we endure, we escape we flourish in strength and wisdom. Throughout our collective time here, no enemy of any member of humanity has overcome a child of God. Even the end of our lives here is a celebrated beginning of our lives in another place.
4:10 We have strength within us to draw from; inside of our spirit is a history of endurance. Creation blew life into us and with that life came resilience and hope.
4:11-12 All attempts to create, restore, promote, inspire justice give us life. No matter the ailment our body takes while confront injustice, our spirit lives and grows and becomes courageous. Paul specifically was threatened with death quite regularly but even as his life on earth diminished, his life spiritually, eternally, grew and emboldened.
4:13 Paul redirects us to Psalm 116:10, "I believed, and therefore I spoke." Belief should be at the heart of everything you speak. We should always be intentionally authentic and truthful. The core of this blog exists in this manner: I believe, and therefore I am speaking. We should not do things for any other reason except that we believe in them and believe in the promotion of them.
4:14-15 God's mission is a mission of selfless love and humility. Every gift and kindness and instruction He gives proliferates, reaches one and then two and four and eight people. Although we cannot possible see the complex configuration of His plan, we are each intricately interwoven by the same thread. Everything He does is to create life and happiness inside of His children, in all of His creation.
4:16 "Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day." We are life contained in a vessel. Our life, our thought, our emotion all exist in our Spirit, which flourishes everyday spent working with God. Here on earth we might age, we might scar, we might cry or stumble but our truest, purest, self endures, learns and thrives if we let it. We must always be aware of and grow our spiritual awareness; there is brilliant, resilient wise life within us waiting to be utilized.
4:17 This life on earth is an elaborate but temporary classroom preparing us for permanence. The lessons we learn here are invaluable for the creation of our best, spiritual selves.
4:18 Essential this verse encourages us to look beyond the superficial construction of the world. So many live their lives procuring wealth, power, property and fame... Paul, and God, want us to learn that those things are vulnerable, temporary and often corrupting. Our focus should be on establishing and growing our character. Who we are, the life inside of us, has the energetic, creative potential to be eternal. Eternally alive, eternally, wise, eternally true and compassionate.
A happy inside (a happy soul) contributes more to the self, humanity and the earth than any material or power that can be procured. A contented soul can wisely, carefully shape the world; a contented soul does not have to fruitlessly try to fill its void with "stuff."
