Let's start off by talking about how reality works. You eat right, you exercise, you get stronger and healthy. When you don't, well, you kinda go backwards. This is like what Paul is explaining here.

He talks about sharing in Christ's suffering and then sharing in his glory. (Glory here is not heaven, glory here is sharing in Christ's humanity; becoming fully human, becoming what human beings were meant to be). When we don't share in Christ's suffering (giving himself away) we are in bondage to decay; we become something other than what we were intended to become. Like Dallas Willard talks about, grace is opposed to earning, not to effort. In other words, it takes effort to work with the Spirit to become who God intends us to become. We take on some chosen suffering in order to work with God in being transformed.

So in the context of these words of Paul in his letter to the Corinthians, what would it look like for us to put in some effort?

Speaker: Aaron Vis

Scripture: Romans 8:12-25

https://www.bible.com/events/49583176