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God." "For me to live in Christ, and to die is gain."

   You know, there is an apparent audacity about the assertion made in our text, which all but takes one's breath, "I fill up...that which is lacking of the sufferings of Christ." "I make up the full sum of all that Christ had to suffer in my person."

[[bold]] What Is This Claim? [[/bold]]

   Was there actually something lacking in Jesus which had to be supplied by Paul? Was there actually some defect in the ministry of our Lord?  Was there some fatal gap in the sacred securities of the Cross?  Was the green hill outside of the city wall the site of an unfinished redemption?  Was Paul needed to perfect the efficacy of atoning grace?  WHAT IS THIS CLAIM?  Now, it is to be remembered that Paul more than any other, continually gloried in the perfected wonders of the reconciling sacrifices of Christ, and this, then, could not be a claim of failure that the Apostle asserts.  There was no deficit in the account for Paul to pay.  There was no adverse balance to be liquidated.  There was not a single crevice of emptines [[sic]] for Paul to fill as such.  WHAT, THEN, IS THIS CLAIM?

  You know, Saul of Tarsus was a most vigorous Jewish detective; he led a search for Christians as far away as Damascus.  It was God that broke in on him, and called him into account, and sent him groping blindly into the city of Damascus where he had planned to make havoc of the Christians, and ordered him to take religious instruction from one of the church father, Ananias.  Saul's plans to roughly haul both men and women to prison were torn asunder.  Paul experienced a change, and upon announcing it, his life was endangered from that day forward, but Paul became a world figure, a world champion, with a world outlook.  He stood ready to introduce the Christ whom he met to the world.  "I fill up on my part." "I wil [[sic]]  malke [[sic]] up the full sum."  Paul was ready and willing to take his full share of suffering as a promoter of the Cause of the Master.  His share was not done on the hill called Calvary; it was to be done on the long, hard road that originated at the empty tomb, but stretched through Jerusalem, and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.  "Wherever man is found; wherever human hearts and woes abound."  You know, friends, this claim of suffering is not elemental, but supplemental.  It is possible for us to supplement the miracles that we cannot perform.

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