7To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.
I would like to look at two parts of this passage. The first is verse 7b where it talks about thorns in flesh. Obviously times have changed and we don’t deal as much with physical abuse and problems when it comes to faith but they are still out there. Nor do we have the same temptations as prior history. Things have changed and the thorns are different but still given by the same individual (Satan). So what are some of the thorns in your life? What temptations do you have, and how do you deal with them?
Prayer is a big thing when working with these thorns in life. Something simple as being pressured into drinking or smoking, or doing something you don’t feel is right. Pray that God helps you with every decision and not just the big ones. To me it is just like saying “THY will be done.” The problem is more often than not I find myself saying “thy will be done.” By this I mean that I am really hoping that God’s will coincide with mine. This most likely is not the right idea, which initially pushes me further away from Him. This is where I like to look to Christ to remind me that my will is not the important one, but God’s is. Look at the book of Luke the 22nd chapter. In verse 41 Jesus asks God to remove the cup from his hands, if it is his father’s will. Thankfully the cup was not removed, because if it were we would have no reason to be here on earth. Jesus obeyed the will of His father and because of this we have the gift of eternal life.
The other portion I would like to look at is that of grace. “My grace is sufficient for you.” Grace is enough, because of God’s grace through faith we are able to have eternal life. The verse continues saying “for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Looking back at the first portion regarding thorns, sometimes when we are at our weakest of times we are closest to God. Its crazy how that works, but it does. I pray that daily we work more to allow God’s will to be ours and that we ask for His every guidance in the decisions we make both big and small. “For it is by grace we have been saved, through faith, and not by works so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Posts
2 comments:
First of all, the thorns in our side. I would list my thorns in my side if I didn't think they are too shameful. I think the thorns in our side are the same things that have been thorns in the side of humans throughout all time, that being anything that separates us from God. Like you said Dan, those things have obviously changed a bit from time to time. There are certain temptations that we now have that were not once here, and there are others that no longer effect us, but in the end, its all about what separates us from God.
There is speculation that Paul suffered from a personal physical ailment and that is what he was praying about here. Obviously for those of us that have physical or mental disabilities we know what he is talking about. I have really really bad legs/knees, and as much as I wish I could go out and run, I can't always. Its a thorn in my side. What comes as a problem is when I let this separate me from God. We must simply do like Paul, and Jesus, and accept the will that God has for us, not the will that we just wish God has for us, echoing what you said Dan.
If we do this, then we realize that his grace IS sufficient for us. I think that sometimes we get tempted to believe that our daily matters are not covered by God's grace, and that they are too petty. Other times I think we hit the other extreme and think that the problem we have is just too much for God's grace, or we have just done something too wrong for God's grace. God looks at each of us, regardless of the situation, and says to us, "My grace is sufficient for YOU. No matter what!" I think that is awesome.
Great post Dan. Great insights.
Joe I couldn't agree with you more. Too often than not we think that we are not covered by God's grace. And just like you said we are always covered by it. It is so amazing knowing that we are always covered by God's grace. It reminds me of how we have hope in Christ Jesus our Savior. And that is not just any hope, it is a hope of confidence!
thanks for the insight joe.
Post a Comment