Recap and purpose

We are starting part two of what I began last week, a message entitled “I Have Cancer, Now What?” It is a message designed specifically for those who are struggling with the new, potentially overwhelming news that they have cancer. As I shared last week, I am facing my own new one, thankfully less aggressive than the cancer I faced a number of years ago.

The purpose is to help you not be overwhelmed in the face of a new cancer diagnosis. These points are not applicable only in cancer. All of us will face trials ordained by God for our good and his glory, and I pray these truths will sustain you in them.

Last week I went through the first three points on our outline: cancer is not your biggest problem; sin is. Before any of this applies, you must apply the gospel to your life and to your cancer. Your biggest problem is sin, a sin that separates you from God, a sin that puts you at enmity with God, and a sin that would not just destroy your body here, but would rightly move God to destroy your body in an eternal, unquenching, never-ending way in hell.

Second, after you have been reconciled to God in the gospel, having all of his wrath extinguished and poured out on Christ on the cross, now you know that cancer cannot kill you. Cancer cannot separate you from God, and God has purposes in your cancer. We trust God. Third, we embrace the testing of your faith that you find in cancer, or any trial, with joy, because you know that God is accomplishing his purposes in your cancer.

So we ended last week with an extended meditation on rejoicing in trials, understanding that God is totally sovereign and has a fatherly love for his children. No trial, suffering, or cancer is outside of his control, and God has gracious purposes for his children. So the believer can have joy through tears and pain in the midst of trials.

Cling to Jesus in weakness

You might hear me say, in that last point, “Embrace the testing of your faith,” and think that is unrealistic, that I am calling you to something impossible. In one sense, that is exactly the point. Joy in trial is not something you muster up on your own. It is evidence of faith, and the trial is often meant, in God’s loving providence, to bring you to the end of your own strength. But because that faith is from God and toward God, it did not come from you in the first place, and it will not fail.

This is what Paul meant when he responded to Jesus’s words. Jesus said, “My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness.” That is why Paul wrote, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” The point of the testing of your faith is not your faith, but the object of your faith.

“Our life is found in looking unto Jesus, not in looking to our own faith. By faith all things become possible to us, yet the power is not in the faith, but in the God upon whom faith relies. Grace is the locomotive, and faith is the chain by which the carriage of the soul is attached to the great motive power. The peace within the soul is not derived from the contemplation of our own faith, but comes to us from him who is our peace.”

Trials are one of God’s many ways of sanctifying us, of getting our eyes off ourselves and our hope off ourselves and onto him, the object of our faith, the source of our peace. There are many times in our trials, especially in trials that destroy our bodies and sap us of strength, when we feel like we do not have the strength to keep going.

Your cancer may not be that hard to endure, yet your trial might still weary you spiritually and emotionally. But many times cancer, whether it is the treatment or the effects of the cancer, robs your body of energy, destroys your organs, or, like me, leaves chemo bathing your brain and your muscles wasting away. Sometimes all I could do was say the words over and over again: “God, I trust you. God, I trust you. God, I hope in you.” This is what clinging to God is.

Paul wrote at the beginning of 2 Corinthians his testimony of God’s purposes in his trial. Notice he did not just say, “This is what I did in my trial.” He acknowledged God’s purposes in his trial, and this purpose is God’s purpose toward us in our trials. He has many purposes, more than you can possibly know, but you know this is one of them. One of his purposes is your sanctification, your holiness. This is another one:

“We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”

Then, at the end of verse 10: “On him we have set our hope.”

Your brain may not be able to wrap itself around how or why God would be taking you through a trial like this. If you are not yet in that trial, do not waste today. Learn about this God today. Go deep into theology, not so you can pass a test or impress your friends, but so that you know this God on whom you will cling when your very life depends on it.

You might recognize that your faith is not all that it should be. Do not worry about that. Just cling to Jesus. In that same sermon from Spurgeon on Ephesians 2:8 that I quoted earlier, I love the illustration he uses of a limpet, a little crustacean who does not know much, but it knows how to hold on. This is childlike faith, a faith that has its focus on the moment and on the one to whom it clings. Spurgeon writes, “God gives to his people the propensity to cling. We can cling when we can do nothing else, and that is the very soul of faith. O poor heart, if thou dost not yet know as much about the gospel as ye could wish thee to know, cling to what thou dost know. Cling then.”

If you cannot reconcile how a good God can bring suffering, if you struggle with the how and the why of this, how God can superintend pain and suffering for your good, I talked last week about how that theology is possible. You can look at the cross and say, “I know the same God who is ordaining this for me is my heavenly Father, and the same God who is ordaining this for my good is Jesus, who gave himself for me.” You can trust. But even if you have a hard time reconciling all of that, you can still trust. You can cling while your mind gets there, while your faith gets there. Cling to Jesus, for that is faith.

Just know, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” That is the childlike faith, the mustard seed, that will survive this trial. Spurgeon goes on: “I do not think the limpet knows much about the rock, but it holds on. A blind man trusts himself with his guide because he knows that his friend can see, and trusting, he walks where his guide conducts him. This is as good an image of faith as well can be. We gladly trust ourselves to him, and he never betrays our confidence.”

So if you find yourself with cancer or any other trial, any other pain, like Paul, do not trust in your strength. Boast in your weakness, because when you are weak, then you are strong in him. This is a testing of your faith, and your faith will endure. So in faith, cling to Jesus, and know that God cares.

His care does not mean that he will guard you from trials, but he sees your pain in them. He sustains you in that trial. He is not aloof or far off. He knows every tear, and he cares for every pain. Psalm 56:8 says:

“You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?”

He hears your prayers with the attentive, caring, wise ear of your heavenly Father, who loves you tenderly. The same heavenly Father who gave his Son for you, his Son Jesus, is the one who loved you and gave himself for you, and one day very soon will dwell with his people. Revelation 21:4 speaks of that day:

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

That one who will wipe away every tear, and who knows every tear, has purposes in your suffering. Cling to him. Trust in him.

Leave tomorrow’s anxieties for tomorrow

Next point: leave tomorrow’s anxieties for tomorrow. Turn your Bible to Matthew 6:34. When talking about anxiety, Jesus says:

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

We could go back through that “therefore” and see how God provides exactly what you need. He knows. If he would clothe the grass of the field, and he knows what you need, he will take care of you. The “therefore” of verse 34 pushes you back to your loving Father who knows what you need and will provide exactly what you need, maybe not what you want, and he cares for you. Which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to the span of his life?

You hear the world say, “One day at a time.” There is wisdom in that, but they cannot mean by that what the Christian means. We say one day at a time because God has promised that he will sustain my faith today. God will give you exactly what you need to endure your trial today.

Anxiety comes when we worry about what we are not yet facing. The anxiety the Bible cautions you about is vain speculation about what might come tomorrow. Most of the things that might come tomorrow will not come. It might be worse; it might be better. But God has not promised you the grace today to deal with the maybes of tomorrow. God will take care of exactly what you need today, so let us deal with today, endure today, and cling to God today.

There is enough trouble, enough to drive you to him today, without overwhelming yourself with what may come tomorrow. Tomorrow it will be today then, and God will handle that day on that day too.

So avoid anxiety today with thanksgiving and prayer. Philippians 4:5-7 says:

“The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

That command, “Do not be anxious about anything,” can feel impossible, especially if you are facing questions like: Am I going to die tomorrow? What is going to happen in this surgery? What side effects am I going to face from this chemo? How is my family going to survive if I cannot work, if I die? I do not know if I bought enough life insurance. I do not have worker’s comp. Fill in the blank. Your mind will run to all kinds of things to be anxious for. Is this shot going to hurt? Do not be anxious for it.

That might feel like me saying, “Hold your breath and keep not breathing.” You may think, “I cannot do that.” God did not ask you to do this on your own or to muster up the strength of faith not to be anxious. He gives a promise that provides the means of not being anxious: “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

So do not focus on not being anxious. You will not be able to. What do you do instead? With thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. As you cling and trust, tell God what you need and what you want. But do not focus primarily on what you do not have. With thanksgiving is the key here.

It is very hard to be both anxious and thankful at the same time, and trials have a way, in the unguarded heart, of making you focus on the trial. All those anxieties I mentioned, and the ones you might face, are generally focused on what you do not have, or what you want that you are worried you will not get, or maybe an experience that you are really not looking forward to. Thanksgiving looks to what God has provided, and looks through what God has provided to the one who provided those things.

You can thank God for today. Thank God that today you woke up. If you are worried about tomorrow, ask him for that. If you are worried about tomorrow’s meal, thank God for the last meal you had. Thank God for his provision. Even if your body is destroyed, he has a new one fit for glory. Even if you die, it is this mortal life being swallowed up in life. It is temporary.

Be thankful for the small things. Be thankful even for all the past blessings as you are asking for future ones. Be thankful, and in your thanksgiving be thankful to the one who has provided the things for which you are thankful. Then he will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Anxiety about tomorrow is guarded with thanksgiving for what God has provided today, what God provided yesterday, and his promises for tomorrow: that he will provide exactly what you need, maybe not what you want, tomorrow.

Don’t grow weary

Next point: don’t grow weary. Open your Bibles to Hebrews 12. Let us read verses 1 through 4 together. There is a very real danger in trials of weariness. You are going to see that word repeated throughout this chapter. In verse 5: “Do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.” The alternative to weariness is enduring, like you see in verse 7. This section is largely about not growing weary in your race of faith. Hebrews 12:1-4 says:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”

What is the solution of Hebrews 12:1-4 to weariness? Did you see it? “So that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.” What do you do instead? “Consider him.” You see it up in verse 2 also: “Looking to Jesus.” In the midst of your cancer, if you have your eyes on your cancer, in the midst of your trials, if you have your eyes primarily on your trials, you will grow weary.

Just like in a race, if you do not consider the prize, if you do not consider the outcome, if you do not consider what you are running for, but all you have is, “I am not sure if I can lift my leg one more time, if I can keep going,” if you have your eyes on the pain in your legs, on the difficulty breathing, you will soon become overwhelmed in the running. But if you look at your teammates who are running with you, and in this case you look at Jesus, who is the author of your faith, he is the one who gave you the faith that will endure in this race. He is the one into whose form you are being matured on this race of faith. He ran it before you. He ran it harder than you. He is more committed to you finishing it than you are. Put your eyes on Jesus.

There is a very real threat of weariness any time in this race of faith that we are running, but especially when your body is weary. There is a threat. Do not stop fighting. You see the connection between weariness and sin. The biggest danger to a weariness that will not endure in this race of faith is not being tired. It is not being sleepless. It is not having a body that is falling apart. It is giving in to the flesh, giving in to sin.

That is why it starts, “Let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely.” Imagine a runner trying to run a marathon loaded down with stuff, dragging chains and boxes behind him, a weight vest on. That runner will grow weary. Get rid of that stuff. No matter how hard you struggle to get rid of sin, first, it will be worth it. But no matter how hard you fight against your own sin, you will not fight against your sin harder than Jesus did.

Do you see verse 4? “In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.” Who did? Jesus. Against sin, not his own, against your sin. The author and perfecter of your faith is he who knew no sin, but became sin for you, so that you might become the righteousness of God in him.

That is why verse 7 says, “It is for discipline that you have to endure.” God is treating you as sons. Your earthly fathers disciplined you. This is not punishment, but training in godliness. Verse 10 says he disciplines us for our good. The outcome, his purpose, at the end of verse 10, is “that we may share his holiness.” “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.” It is. It hurts. “But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Verse 14: “Strive for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” Therefore, verse 12, lift your drooping hands. Strengthen your weak knees. Eyes on Jesus. Endure.

Embrace help

You may find yourself at a point where your strength has come to an end in your weariness, or you are not sure you can go on. In weariness, particularly a weariness that says, “I cannot even pray anymore. I am not sure I want to endure,” if so, call for help. Turn to James 5:13:

“Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick?”

Your translation might say “sick,” and maybe a more complete word, a better word here, might be “weak.” It can be a weakness that comes from being sick, but you can be sick and strong. The focus here is not, “Do you have a cold?” or even, “Do you have cancer?” This is not, “Hey, call them and get healed from your physical illness.” The focus here is prayer, a closeness to God that will endure in holiness in the midst of weariness.

“Is anyone among you weak?” Or weary. That is how that word is translated in every other epistle. “Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him.” Call for help. If you are suffering, pray. And if you are so weak, so weary, that you find that you cannot even pray, you do not want to endure, call for help. Elders, go. Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, caring for the physical needs, getting their tears on your shoulder.

“And the prayer of faith will save the one who is weary, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”

That word “weary” there is the same word you find in Hebrews 12. So if you find that you cannot pray, that you do not want to endure, that you are having a hard time persevering in your faith, call for help. And if you get that call, go help that one endure in faith. Because if he repents and turns to the Lord in faith in the midst of his weariness, that weariness might be coming in the face of very real physical suffering, but the Lord will raise him up. It does not mean that he will heal him from his sickness, but that he will help him persevere in his faith.

Therefore, what is the antidote to this weariness that might keep you from even being able to pray? What is the protection? “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” I do not have time to go into all of it, but just know that what is in view here is not primarily that you would be healed from your cancer. It might have in mind that you would be healed from the deadening effects of sin. “By his stripes you have been healed,” in that sense. Just trust that God has purposes in your trials.

This is the same book that started with, “Count it all joy when you face trials, because the testing of your faith will produce endurance,” and it ends, in essence, “If your endurance is failing in the testing of your faith, get help.” Get help. Get help now so that you can endure in faith.

If you find a brother, if you see somebody wandering from the truth, not persevering in the face of a trial like this, and they call for help, go. My brothers, the book ends this way:

“If anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”

If you find yourself facing a trial that may be the end of your life, and you find that your faith is not enduring, cry to God for help. Say, “God, I believe; help my unbelief.” And reach out to your church for help: “I cannot pray. Will you pray with me? Help me pray.” Then do not rely only on their prayers. Confess your sins to one another, pray for one another, and help each other limp across the finish line with our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

Prioritize the church

Next point: prioritize the church. That last point tells you that you cannot run this race alone. You are not supposed to. You are not supposed to face this cancer on your own. You are an indispensable part of the body, even if you cannot function in the way you used to.

God, who saved you to be a part of his body, gave you his Spirit, gave you a gift, and ordained the way that Grace Bible Church is put together. The same God who ordained that also ordained your weaknesses. You might not be able to function in the body in exactly the way you wish you could function, or the way you used to function in the body. “I used to be able to go out and serve, meet all these needs. Now I cannot even get out of bed.” That does not mean you are useless in the body.

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor.”

There was a long time where my family could not be present with the body, but we were still part of it. Because of cancer, there are a number of people in our body who cannot be here on a Sunday. They have a hard time gathering. They seem to be weaker, and yet they are indispensable. Do not forget them. And if you are them, prioritize the church as you can. Recognize in faith that you are still a part of the church.

God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

God has purposes in your cancer not just for you, but also for the church, for his church. In your cancer, through your cancer, you have the opportunity to live out being part of the body of Christ, maybe not in the way you hoped, the way you would prefer, but in the way that God has designed. Do not neglect that.

You may find you have a lot of time alone. You can encourage others through your faith and perseverance, but not if you do not let them see it. So allow others to care for you. Like James 5:16 says, confess sin to one another and pray for one another. If you are alone, send texts or letters of encouragement. Allow visitors if you can.

While you are alone, here is a temptation. In many hospital beds, at desperate moments of life, people numb away the pain with frivolous entertainment. Do not use technology to numb you with mindless entertainment, but to connect you to God’s people and resources that will sustain you, whether sermons, audiobooks, good messages, or, even better, FaceTime with church. Do not forget those who are not present with us.

Your cancer might not be one that keeps you alone. Maybe you just have to endure coming to church in pain, having a week of trials that others cannot appreciate. But those trials may have prepared you for the good works God has for you as you come together as the body. As you have seen your weakness and clung to Christ, you may be well positioned to care for someone on Sunday.

The un-shepherded heart will let cancer drive you into yourself, to think about yourself. The well-shepherded heart, knowing that it is part of the body, will think about the body rather than yourself, and that will drive you to selflessly serve. Hebrews 10:24 says, “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some.” You might think, “I have all kinds of excuses not to meet. I have cancer. I am tired. This was a hard week. I get chemo tomorrow.” But rather than neglecting, encourage one another, “and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

When you have cancer, you are more aware of that Day, I hope, than ever before. Gathering may have unique challenges for you. It might even be impossible at times. But still consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. Do not let cancer make you prioritize other things over the church, of which you are individually members.

Think of others selflessly

Similar point: think of others selflessly. I love Paul’s perspective in 2 Corinthians on his suffering, and we can learn much from him.

“If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. And if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.”

Our situation is different than Paul’s, but your heartbeat should not be. John Piper says it well: “We waste our cancer if we let it drive us into solitude instead of deepening our relationships with manifest affection.” Cancer is humbling. Some of its side effects can be embarrassing. But do not allow these excuses to drive you into secluded privacy.

Consider, even in your cancer, not merely how to be the recipient of encouragement, but how to encourage one another. You, in your cancer, as you are suffering, consider others selflessly. How can you encourage them? You will not be able to do it in solitude, or if solitude is your aim.

“If one member suffers, all suffer together.” It is hard for us to suffer if people do not know about it. That does not mean you need to broadcast all your suffering — “Woe is me, get the attention on me.” That is not the point. But you can actually think of others as you humbly let them into your suffering. As God sustains you in your cancer, you will be an encouragement to Christians around you.

You will also be able to give very real testimony of Christ to those who do not yet know him. There is no more potent evangelism than evangelism in which you are proclaiming as your only hope the one you are so obviously clinging to as your only hope. When a religious or irreligious person sees something in you, sees a sustaining of faith in you and an endurance in you that obviously did not come from you, God can use that.

In chapter 11 of Don’t Waste Your Cancer, I cannot summarize it better than just reading it: “We waste our cancer if we fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ. Christians are never anywhere by divine accident. There are reasons why we wind up where we do. Consider what Jesus said about painful, unplanned circumstances: ‘They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness.’ So it is with cancer. This will be an opportunity to bear witness. Christ is infinitely worthy. Here is a golden opportunity to show that he is worth more than life. Don’t waste it. Remember, you are not left alone. You will have the help you need. ‘My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.’”

Look through cancer to Christ

So look through cancer to Christ. Cancer is just the path set before you. Do not look at the cancer. Look through it. Look to Jesus, and consider him. Our highest hope is not a cure. God has not promised that you will live cancer-free or trial-free.

Sometimes our suffering is at the hands of others, like persecutions, or sometimes, like cancer, it is the result of living in a groaning, sin-stained world. But our sufferings are always ordained by God and should always point us to him. First Peter 4:12 says:

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings.”

Peter opened that book, written to suffering saints, by showing how trials, especially trials that might kill you, are designed by God in the gospel to prove the genuineness of faith, to point you to heaven, to guard you into eternity, and thereby to bring glory and honor to Jesus and stir love for Jesus in your heart. First Peter 1 says:

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

Piper again, in that great little booklet Don’t Waste Your Cancer: “Cancer does not win if we die; it wins if we fail to cherish Christ. God’s design is to wean us off the breast of the world and feast us on the sufficiency of Christ. It is meant to help us say and feel, ‘I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,’ and to know that therefore ‘to live is Christ, and to die is gain.’”

Talk to yourself; don’t listen to yourself

In your cancer, talk to yourself. Do not listen to yourself. I think the best example of this, or at least my favorite example, is Lamentations 3:21-24. All around the author are sufferings. He writes in that chapter, “This is what it feels like. It feels like the Lord is against me. It feels like these sufferings will not end. It feels like God is not keeping his promises,” because his city is in ruins and his people have turned against him, committing unthinkable acts just to survive.

Then he says, in effect, “This is what I feel, but it is not what is real.” He says:

“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’”

Talk to yourself when yourself is feeling overwhelmed, when you are feeling beaten down, when you are feeling like God is against you. Say, “Self, trust in the Lord. He is good. His steadfast love never ceases. Jesus loved me. He gave himself for me. If God would give his own Son for me, how will he not with him give me all things I need? If he is for us, who can be against us?” Keep going and going. Talk to yourself. Do not listen to yourself.

Anchor your perspective in eternity

And finally, anchor your perspective in eternity. It is wise to think regularly about death, whether you have cancer or not. One of the sweet things about cancer is that it might be the way you die, and it is wise to think about how short life is in comparison to eternity. Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

There is something especially sweet amid the bitter pain when we see our bodies, which you might be tempted to trust, falling apart, and our earthly tent being destroyed. Second Corinthians 5 says:

“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling.”

It goes on: “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”

And in 2 Corinthians 4:14, when you are thinking about dying, remember that “he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us into his presence.” Remember, even if you die, cancer does not win. Cancer may be the way that God separates you from this body, swallowing up the mortal with life. Cancer may separate you from this world, but your citizenship was never here.

“Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,

who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body,

by the power that enables him even to subject all things, including cancer, to himself.”

God, thank you that cancer cannot win, that sin does not win, that you win. You reign, and we can trust you. We love you. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.