«　WEEK 3　DAY 1　»

　　Phil. 1:19-21 …For me this will turn out to salvation through your petition and the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I will be put to shame, but with all boldness, as always, even now Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

　　In Job chapter 3 Job cursed the day of his birth. He was a good man and he was trying to keep his perfection, uprightness, and integrity, but due to his vexation he could not contain himself, and he did not know what to do. No doubt, he expected to have a time to deal with God, but this was not something that he dared to initiate. Not wanting to lose his perfection, he released his vexation by cursing his birthday.

　　Job was disturbed, perplexed, and entangled to the uttermost by his suffering of the disasters that befell his possessions and his children and the plague on his body, in spite of his perfection, uprightness, and integrity. When Job cursed his birthday, he surely was not perfect and upright. In doing this… he became bankrupt in integrity….To curse his birthday meant that he cursed his mother. (Life-study of Job, p. 25)

　　Job indicated that he preferred death instead of life (Job 3:11-23). It is difficult to believe that Job actually preferred death instead of life…. Perhaps Job did not [put an end to himself] because he wanted to keep his integrity.

　　Job’s experience of God’s consuming and stripping in the Old Testament was far behind that of Paul in the New Testament. God’s consuming is to exhaust us, and God’s stripping is to take away our riches from us. First, God stripped Job of his possessions, and then God consumed him. Job’s suffering of the plague on his body was a consuming. Day by day and hour by hour, Job was being consumed. In the New Testament God’s consuming and stripping become pleasant things. Since the day he was converted, Paul was a person under God’s consuming and God’s stripping (2 Cor. 4:16).

　　Paul was born destined to be crucified, and he was reborn crucified that it would be no longer he who lived but Christ who lived in him (Gal. 2:20a). When we were regenerated, we, like Paul, were reborn crucified for the purpose that from that time it would be no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us.

　　In his experience of God’s consuming and stripping, Paul was not constricted under the pressures on every side and did not perish despite his being cast down (2 Cor. 4:8-9)…. Every day he was cast down, but he did not perish. Paul did not curse the day of his birth, and he did not say that he preferred to die rather than to live. On the contrary, after much consideration Paul said that he still preferred to live, not to die, because to him to live was Christ (Phil. 1:21-25). Paul’s living Christ was for him to magnify Christ. His desire was to magnify Christ whether through life or through death (v. 20).

　　When Paul was suffering distresses for the sake of Christ (2 Cor. 12:10), he was well pleased, he was happy, and he was even rejoicing in the Lord for his experiences (Col. 1:24). Paul’s reaction to his sufferings was very different from Job’s. Job did not rejoice but was all the time vexed.

　　Paul pursued to be conformed to Christ’s death in the fellowship of His sufferings (Phil. 3:10). He took Christ’s death as a mold for his life. To Paul it was a great pleasure to be molded in the death of Christ.

　　Paul said that he was always bearing about in the body the putting to death of Jesus and was always being delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake that the life of Jesus might be manifested in his mortal flesh (2 Cor. 4:10-11). Every day in his Christian life Paul was put to death. The only way for him to manifest Christ’s life was to experience Christ’s death. (Life-study of Job, pp. 26-28)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Job, msgs. 4, 16; Life-study of Philippians, msg. 7