[Devotional] IN HIS PRESENCE: Your value is in the pressing

Read: 2 Corinthians 4:7-10

Meditation verse:

“We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not  in despair” (2 Corinthians 4:8).

Have you ever considered how oil is gotten from olive seeds? The seeds are  pressed to express the oil. To produce sweet wine, bunches of grape seeds are  put in a big drum and someone steps in to trample on them. Bread is made by  kneading dough on a hard surface and the churning of cream produces butter. 

What does all of this say about the creation of value?  

The value in you will not be birthed in your comfort zone. It is in the daily  struggling, pressing, squeezing, and suffering that the value you carry will show  forth. Newton’s first law of motion states that an object either remains at rest  or continues to move at a constant velocity unless it is acted upon by an external  force. The second law states that the rate of change of momentum of an object  is directly proportional to the force applied. Greatness can hardly be found in  your comfort zone, only mediocrity resides there.  

Jesus told His disciples that if they wanted to become great, they must serve  others. Then, He rolled up his sleeves, put on an apron and bent down to wash  their feet. Prophesying the suffering of the Messiah, Isaiah 50:6 states “I gave  My back to those who struck Me, And My cheeks to those who plucked out the  beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting”. If the world is to benefit  from your value, you must get out there and do the dirty work, and in doing so,  you will be hard pressed.  

2 Corinthians 4:7-10 says, “but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the  excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on  every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted,  but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the  body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in  our body. So, do not resist the hard knocks of life. The value is always in the  pressing.

IN HIS PRESENCE is written by Pst (Mrs) Oke Chinye, Founder of The Rock Teaching Ministry (TRTM).

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