Time does not seem to change the struggles of man. The conditions that existed among the believers of Corinth in the days of the writing of the New Testament sounds like the everyday affairs of modern man. The atmosphere was charged with aggressive competitiveness, unrestrained individuality, sexual abuse, and dietary concerns. They even had those who thought they knew it all and attempted to make everyone live accordingly. Living in the flesh and blood world of human existence always seems to produce divisions, conflict, and injustice.

The only salvation for man is for God to intervene into the affairs of man and establish His kingdom. Man has to be literally saved from himself. He has to experience a baptism that takes him down in death to the earthly reign of corruption and decay and raises him in life to the heavenly reign of incorruption and glory.

In a world of competition, selfishness, sexual harassment, dietary abuse, and one-upmanship, man can experience peace, joy, and fairness. Although living in the world, he can come to experience being not of the world. God, through the mysteries of baptism, can intervene into your life and establish his kingdom among you.

Jesus revealed how this miracle of the bloom of the rose occurs when he stated, "The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified" (John 12:23). He would also state, "But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation" (Luke 17:25). Jesus would have to be taken to the end of His physical existence in order to experience the fullness of His spiritual existence.

The suffering of Jesus in many things and being rejected of his generation was how He would be taken to the end of His physical existence. He knew to experience the glory of the Father it would require Him being taken to His physical death by the Father. He said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John 12:24). He added, "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour" (John 12:27).

This is the real essence of living by faith--the secret of life. Jesus finding Himself being brought to the end of His physical life would not pray to be delivered from what God was doing in His life. Neither would He attempt to save himself from the troubling circumstances by the scheming of His mind. He knew (saw things as His Father saw them--the essence of faith) to be glorified by the Father was the end of all things. He simply stated, "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal" (John 12:25).

Before anyone can be glorified by the Father they too must be brought to the end of their physical existence. Although experiencing the bloom of the rose does not require the physical death of the believer, it does require the death of anything physical on which the believer is attempting to experience his life. The harvest comes only after the planning of the seed.

When God the Father has so arranged the circumstances of life to bring about death to the physical existence, only those who do not attempt "to save [himself] from this hour" will experience being glorified by the heavenly Father. As Jesus said, "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour" (John 12:27). When the struggles of life are all around, the faith that knows does not falter. It realizes that the heavenly Father is at work to bring forth the glory of His Son Jesus Christ. All physical dependency for life is being brought to its end and the glory of the spiritual reality of the manifestation of Jesus Christ is being brought forth.