Always Worth Sharing

[Walter and Deborah]

Wednesday 5-11-22 4th. Day Of The Weekly Cycle, Iyar 9, 5782 53rd. Spring Day

Day 24 ― Tiferet of Netzach: Compassion in Endurance

Healthy endurance, directed to develop good qualities and modifying bad ones, will always be compassionate. The compassion of endurance reflects a most beautiful quality of endurance: an enduring commitment to help another grow.

Endurance without compassion is misguided and selfish. Endurance needs to be not just loving to those who deserve love, but also compassionate to the less fortunate.

Does my determination compromise my compassion for others?
Am I able to rise above my ego and empathize with my competitors? Am I gracious in victory?

Exercise for the day: Be patient and listen to someone who usually makes you impatient.

Always Worth Sharing

Read: 2 Corinthians 2:12–17 | Bible in a Year: 2 Kings 13–14; John 2
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Thanks be to God, who always . . . uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. 2 Corinthians 2:14

After I became a believer in Jesus, I shared the gospel with my mother. Instead of making a decision to trust Jesus, as I expected, she stopped speaking to me for a year. Her bad experiences with people who claimed to follow Jesus made her distrust believers in Christ. I prayed for her and reached out to her weekly.

The Holy Spirit comforted me and continued working on my heart as my mom gave me the silent treatment. When she finally answered my phone call, I committed to loving her and sharing God’s truth with her whenever I had the opportunity. Months after our reconciliation, she said I’d changed. Almost a year later, she received Jesus as her Savior, and, as a result, our relationship deepened.

Believers in Jesus have access to the greatest gift given to humanity—Christ. The apostle Paul says we’re to “spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere” (2 Corinthians 2:14). He refers to those who share the gospel as “the pleasing aroma of Christ” to those who believe, but acknowledges we reek of death to those who reject Jesus (vv. 15–16).

After we receive Christ as our Savior, we have the privilege of using our limited time on earth to spread His life-changing truth while loving others. Even during our hardest and loneliest moments, we can trust He’ll provide what we need. No matter what the personal cost, God’s good news is always worth sharing.

How has God encouraged you to not give up after you shared the gospel with someone who reacted in a negative way? How did God bring you close to someone after you both connected as believers in Jesus?

Help me share Your good news wherever You send me, God!

INSIGHT
Believers in Jesus have been rescued from death by faith in Him. But another way to view believers in Christ is as “commissioned captives” in that they’ve also been tasked with sharing with others the same good news that has brought them from darkness to light, from death to life.

When Paul notes that “God . . . leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere” (2 Corinthians 2:14), he uses images from military conquests of the ancient world. After significant victories, Roman military commanders would lead those who’d been captured in procession.

Some of the processionals included the use of fragrant spices, perfumes, and incense. This is what Paul is likely referring to in these verses. Believers in Jesus are His “sanctified spoils,” crucial and now useful for His mission in the world.

By Xochitl Dixon|May 11th, 2022

Evangelism 2 Corinthians Two:12-17

12 Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord,

13 I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother: but taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia.

14 Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.

15 For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish:

16 To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?

17 For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.

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Love, Walter and Debbie

[Mama Etna]

My sister right now is experiencing a strain in friendship because she witnessed to that friend.

[Sower]

6 hours ago, Walter and Deborah said:

Exercise for the day: Be patient and listen to someone who usually makes you impatient.

That would be me, listening to my own self .......