Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.15 For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; 16 to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life.”
Here Paul is talking about his triumphant life in Christ at all times and manifests the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Christ in every place and a fragrance of Christ to God among everyone whom he met. This is an amazing statement and since the Holy Spirit recorded this in the bible, it is true and always means always, every place means every place and everyone means everyone. But many of the believers are not able to understand or accept the reality of this statement and believe that such a life is possible for them also.
Again Paul says in Phil 4:4-7 about a life, which rejoices always in the Lord, anxious for nothing and a heart and mind guarded by peace of God. When he is talking about such a great life many may think that he was having a very favorable and comfortable life but the truth is that he was going through very hard life with fiery trials and we are getting a glimpse of that in 2 Cor. 11:23-28. He was writing this from a horrible prison in Rome. God gave us a free will to choose and it is the values we set for our selection that decides how our life will be.
In midst of all these fiery trials Paul is convinced and confident that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Rom 8: 35-39 “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?36 Just as it is written, “For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
This is really a challenging life and we may wonder what the secret of this glorious, victorious life is? And whether it is possible for others to have such a life? Paul is a man like us and if Paul can have such a life then definitely it is possible for us also can have such a life because our God is an impartial God. But we also have to live in the way Paul lived. The secret of Paul’s life is given in Phil. 3:4-14. Paul was having many great things in the religious as well as material world. He was very zealous about his religion and was killing and torturing all Christians. But when God revealed Jesus Christ to him, his direction of life become just opposite to what he was having, a radical change in life.
Phil 3 :7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.8 more than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
This radical change in life to suffer the loss of all things and count them as rubbish to gain Christ led Paul to the glorious Christian life which we have seen before. God gave us a free will to choose and it is the values we set for our selection that decides how our life will be.
Jesus said in Luke 16:15 that “which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God”. So if we are longing for a glorious Christian life, we should see the things of this world in the same way God sees that and we should always be controlled by the value system of God. When we start walking in this way by depending on God, Holy Spirit will reveal the beauty of Jesus Christ more and more to us and that will be the greatest longing and ambition in our life.
May God help all of us to have such a glorious Christian life, which challenges many others like Paul’s.
