Share in His Suffering

I always imagined that I need to be perfect in order for me to minister effectively. I look at my own hang-ups, issues that still need to be worked on, doubts that I battle and wonder if I'm any good for anything. Often chide myself that I should work on my own issues before I try to be hero and seek to help others with theirs. If I can't myself, the logic goes, who do I think I am to 'help' others? Yet as I come to the foot of the cross, I hear the mockery hurled at him, 'He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One"; "If you are the kinf og the Jews, save yourself"; "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!""So, You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!"; and"He saved others, but he can't save himself! Let this Christ, this King of Israel come down from the cross that we may see and believe." I realised that the way Christ came to save us is through brokenness, pain, shame, weakness, helplessness, and vulnerability. He did not assume power, the Prince of Peace did not take up the authority that is due to Him but chose to lay it down, so that I can be healed, redeemed and be a channel for His healing to flow in and through me to others who are broken like me.

I am learning not to shun my own weakness, despise my brokenness, or assume I need to be complete and whole before I can be used of him. But like Paul, say "We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.... we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." (paraphrase 2 Cor 4:5,7, 10) Since I am His body, I should not be surprised that my life bears the marks of the cross - marks of a body broken and death. My prayer and hope is that I may know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, to become like him in his death, and so, somehow, attain to the resurrection from the dead (Phil 3:10-11). Through this, may His zoe life and healing flow to the nations and He alone be glorified eternally.