As followers of Christ we are to seek to see Jesus manifested in our flesh. This is what Paul says in 2 Cor 4:11: “For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus‘ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.“ After all, it is our visible displays that the world can see. They see peace in the midst of storms, joy in the face of disease or death, calm and peace in the face of frustrating circumstances. What controls the inner man always reveals itself in the outer man. This is why Jesus placed such emphasis on love for one another, especially the unlovely-the poor, the hungry, the naked. The Christian to be effective in this world or cynicism needs to make the invisible Christ known in our visible bodies. Paul says how we are to do this, by being constantly delivered unto death and then by the implied relying on Jesus alone for life.
A man delivered unto death has no power over his own life. He has no power to act on his own. Adam in the garden was to be dependent upon God and all that God gave him to have power over. Adam was to have no power over the fruit of two trees in the midst of the garden-the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the tree of Life. Adam was to depend totally upon God for life, and totally upon God for the knowledge and power to live this life. Adam was not to live independently of God. Adam was not to know about evil and good, and thereby have the power to act independently of God. 
God and the knowledge of Him was to be Adam’s life.
When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they became possessed with an inherent power to act independently from God, a power that played into Satan’s hands. You lose that power when you come to new life in Jesus Christ. He is your new Lord. You are to live life now by the life of Jesus Christ, and draw everything for living from Him. (Gal 2:20).
We say we desire to give glory to God with our lives, yet by acting under our own power, we give glory to ourselves. We fool ourselves into thinking we are living in Christ when there is very little we do that does not require His power to act. We live, eat, work and play with Jesus carefully tucked in our backpack, or tattooed on our body.
Occasionally we even consult our magic Jesus Prophet doll and ask Him “what would you do”? We do so little trembling in our lives. If we were being delivered unto death, we would be trembling. If we were facing our Creator God, we would be trembling. We do not know what it is to be “always delivered unto death”. And so the life of Jesus is not manifested to the dying world around us. They see a different Jesus, a powerless Jesus, a Homeboy Jesus.
Because we are acting under our own power, we live a self-assured, yet self-possessed Christian life. In such a life, Jesus Christ cannot be revealed. Too often we have decided, acted, and had power apart from Him. The Christ we manifest is too small because in ourselves we have grown too big.
Prayer: Lord, deliver me unto death. Deliver me into the life which depends totally upon Jesus Christ. I give you my heart, my soul, my body and my strength. My life is under your control. My life will be in your hands from this day forward.
Loving the Word with the MudPreacher 