As We Bask In the Love of The Son, Our Outer Self Wastes Away
When in Honduras we learned about the entire process that coffee goes through from seed to cup. We started by visiting a Beneficio in Santa Rosa, where the labor intensive process of preparing the coffee fruit to consume as a beverage takes place. Coffee "beans" are really seeds from a fruit that forms on the coffee shrub. Once grown, the seeds must be picked and then corporately put through a series of processes to prepare for the final product that will stimulate the consumer with a desire for more of the delicious black liquid that has become a ritual in many homes across the world.
Each morning I enjoy the cup of hot fresh coffee that my husband prepares for me using just the right brew ratio in an aero-press. I don't ever think about the process that the coffee had to go through in order for me to enjoy my morning cup of coffee. I have lost sight of the intentional process that each seed is put through in order to have specific flavor notes.
God handcrafts each of us by putting us through intentional processes in order to produce in us a specific character or flavor to our personality yet all too often we forget that we are in process. Although we want the final product, God is far more concerned about the process because Jesus Christ has already made us right in God's sight by His perfect sacrifice.
But there is something about this process that we don't want to miss. Like the coffee seeds above, God sometimes seemingly leaves us out to dry. We face wilderness seasons where we feel dry and the heat of circumstances seems to over power our soft skin and we become spiritually thirsty never seeming to be refreshed. In this process God is at work, intentionally preparing us for use in His cup.
We are being put through a 'natural' process and Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Just like this natural process God allows us to go through a continual process where our outer self wastes away but just like the coffee our inner self is being made sweeter day by day.
None of us would choose to go through the process that Paul is describing here but it is a necessary part of the process. This process helps us to keep perspective on what really matters and that is the heart.
Our outward appearance will change dramatically over the course of our life time and God's desire is to see that outer self waste away day by day all the while our inner man grows and flourishes, eventually producing a sweetness that is only produced during afflictions and turmoil.
God is a master gardener who is very intentional
about the process he puts us through.
Romans 5:1-5
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Just as the sun pours down on the coffee cherry's flesh, drying it out and causing it to waste away, so it is with God's love as it is poured into our hearts, it wastes away all of our 'goodness' so that we can be a people of character that stand in the rays of His grace and rejoice through difficulties as He produces the sweet flavor of endurance and hope in our lives.
Father, as we bask in Your great love today help us to see the purpose of the process that You intentionally have us in right now. Our flesh does not like the process but we recognize that our spirit will benefit in ways that we never could have imagined. We offer our lives to You today and say produce in us what You want to pour from our lives for our good and Your glory!
Philippians 2:14-18
Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent,
children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation,
among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life,
so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
Even if I am to poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offer of your faith,
I am glad and rejoice with you all.
Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.
children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation,
among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life,
so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
Even if I am to poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offer of your faith,
I am glad and rejoice with you all.
Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.
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