2 Corinthians 4:16

We do not lose heart, Paul says, because even as the outward man wears down, the inward man is renewed day by day. He acknowledges the plain reality that the body weakens and decays -- the "outward man" perishes under affliction and time. But that decline is met by an opposite movement underneath: a daily, ongoing renewal of the inner person. Two processes run at once, and the inward one never stops.

The phrase "day by day" is the heart of it. Renewal is not a one-time event but a daily replenishing, like manna gathered fresh each morning. While the outer life may be visibly fading -- through hardship, persecution, or simple aging -- God is quietly rebuilding the inner life all the while. This is why Paul "faints not" despite all he has endured. His hope is not pinned to the body's strength, which he knows is temporary, but to the inner renewal that grows even as the outer frame fails. The verse speaks tenderly to the weary, the sick, the aging: visible decline is not the whole story. Beneath what eyes can see, God renews the inward person every single day, and that hidden work is heading somewhere the body's decay cannot touch.