Christian Living

Three Clues for Courageous Living

by J.W. Phillips
01/07/25
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Three Clues for Courageous Living

There can be no doubt that Paul exhibited enormous courage when the bloodhounds of hate were on his trail! Despite being under constant attack, Paul said, “we do not lose heart” but are being “renewed day by day.” This statement should immediately get our full attention.

Instead of being another joyless face in the crowd, and instead of being in that vast number of congregants for whom the Christian life isn’t working, our life could become like his—one so courageous, so contagious, that others will turn to God to get what we’ve got.

Stunned by this prospect, and stirred in our hearts to learn how this can be, we will consider one verse in Scripture (II Corinthians 4:17), just one, that provides three clues for how the courageous life could be our life.

First clue: Paul speaks of his—

Light Affliction
Now, if you had been jailed, beaten, stoned, and killed—and even now you were being stalked so they could kill you again—would you regard all this as a “light affliction”?

No way! Most of us would have had our joy so jammed up we’d be moaning the words of that old spiritual, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.”

The real reason Paul could talk this way was because of this one fact—he wasn’t carrying the burden!

The command of the Lord is to cast our cares upon him (I Peter 5:7)—and that’s exactly what Paul did! And in doing so, Paul discovered a reality that could be ours, too, and it is this: Just as soon as we cast our care upon the Lord, we will immediately feel the burden lifted! Moreover, that which happens suddenly will then be sustained!

A second clue for courage found in this same verse is this: Paul’s burden was—

But for a Moment
Have you ever noticed that when problems come, time seems to slow down, seemingly with the cruel motive to make us experience every particle of pain? This slow-down can become so defining it seems to encapsulate our life, as if we’re being finished off with slow torture.

So why did Paul have a different view? There’s only one reason. Paul had an eternity perspective!

Now, given that our time on earth is but a small parenthesis in the great story of eternity, there’s a strong infusion of reality supporting this perspective.

When calculating the time one has on this earth from the cradle to the grave, the answer turns out to be about twenty-seven thousand days. It may be a little more; it may be a little less. But that’s a close approximation of the extent of our days on earth.

Once we start thinking about our life in terms of days, our journey here won’t seem so long—especially when we start thinking about how long eternity is! Can you fathom it—living in uninterrupted bliss forever and ever?

Contemplate that! Fixate on that! Because by comparison these days on earth are brief and fast fleeting. So we can hold on for a little while, can’t we?

Another remarkable clue for courage, cited in this same verse, relates to the way our ongoing trial is—

Working For Us
Often, when big-time problems come our way, we’re prone to think, “Why me? Why this? Why now?” The one thing we certainly don’t think is that these problems are working for us!

Paul did. I mean he really did! For he goes on to say that these threatening problems are working for us “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” From Paul’s perspective, there were super off-setting benefits, hugely in his favor!

Now, I ask you: Who thinks this way?

The book of James helps us to understand why Paul thought this way when it instructs us to count it all joy when we fall into various trials.

Joy for troubles? Surely, that’s not God’s answer. And you’re right, it isn’t. God’s answer is all joy!

Do the math; count it all joy. Because these trials, James tells us, will help us to produce patience.

You should know that whenever we exercise patience and exercise it for the length of time God has determined, patience will so effectively work for us—that’s right, for us—that we will become perfect, entire, lacking nothing (James 1:4).

Can language get any stronger than this?

According to Scripture, every blessing possible for believers on this side of Heaven will be ours if we’ll just learn to let patience be our response to problems. In fact, much more than what was ever threatened will instead be gained, if … we’ll just handle each problem God’s way.

Patience—which means to rely on the divine supply; it is this decision to keep faith on the job—is the key that will unlock a treasure house of colossal, stupendous blessings. Those exercising patience get will renewed now and rewarded later.

One verse of Scripture, that’s all we’ve considered here. But that one verse is enough for our testimony to become more like Paul’s—head-lifting, heart-lightening, and faith-strengthening.

Courageous? Yes, indeed! But contagious—why would we say that? Because throughout this chapter, almost in every verse, Paul uses the plural, we and us.

This isn’t the testimony of one man, but the testimony of one man who influenced other men!

There were other testifiers of Christ who withstood evil attacks against them and who, like Paul—and mostly because of the example Paul was setting right before their eyes—rose to experience the victory he experienced.

How did they do it? Was it some form of hero worship? No, it wasn’t that. Paul inspired them to believe what he believed, to claim the sufficiency of grace he claimed.

Noble sounding words, we know, may be dismissed as being only that, words that sound good. However, the outcome will be dramatically different if the one who speaks those words is living them out right before your eyes, and doing so under the most intense pressure!

The Book of Acts report that more than forty men banded together taking an oath that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul (Acts 23:12). Now, that’s intense! Paul was a hunted man! The persecution against him was relentless! So how could any sensible man want to align with him?

But they did! The he became we. The me became us. The courageous became contagious.