We are always being given over to death, for Jesus' sake.

2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 11.

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

An offering for Jesus was written by Monica LaRose and read by Tony Collier.

2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 5 through 12.

For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants

for Jesus' sake, for God, who said said let light shine out of darkness made his

light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory

displayed in the face of Christ but we have this treasure in jars of clay to

show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed, perplexed, but not in despair.

Persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed, we always carry around in our body the death of Jesus so that the

life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to

death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.

So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

An offering for Jesus, written by Monica LaRose.

I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief, no everlasting hills I see,

wrote the Victorian poet Christina Rosetti and her poignant poem, A Better Resurrection.

Rosetti's poem describes grasping for hope when she feels none, numbed too much for hopes or fears. Yet Rosetti

was anchored in a hope deeper than her feelings of despair. Though she could see no bud

nor greenness pointing to Christ's resurrection renewing her life, she confessed, yet rise it shall. And prayed, oh, Jesus, rise in me.

In 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul also describes experiencing suffering far beyond his ability

...