Power in Weakness

2 Corinthians 12: 8-10 -   Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But 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.  That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Paul is referring to his…thorn…his human weakness.  We are not told exactly what that is…but it must have caused Paul a lot of grief…he asked God to take it away three times.  God never did…he just told Paul that he needed to rely on him more…to quit worrying about it….to allow God to take that weakness and use it…to show his power.

One day…I hope to see my weaknesses as Paul did.  I have to admit…I haven’t quite learned this lesson.  He is in the process of teaching me…I am beginning to understand what he is talking about…but it is so very hard…to just let God be in control….all the time.  It is so very hard to see from a human perspective how God will use my random thoughts….my bad habit of interrupting…my selfishness….but the promise is there…right in Paul’s words to the Corinthians.  God can and will use all my faults to somehow show his power.  Amazing.

I have read this lesson more than once…as I have read through the bible…but because I am human...I needed a Google search to remind me that God has already tried to put this thought in my hard head.  In Isaiah 53:10-11 it says, “ Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.  After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light [of life] and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.”  Isaiah was predicted the very son of God….Jesus himself had to become weak…so that God could show his power in his resurrection!  We will see the light of God’s life…and be satisfied. Again I say Amazing!

And I had forgotten the passage in Romans 5….where Paul described the perfect peace and joy we can tap into when we get this lesson right.  In verses 1-6   he says, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.  You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” One more time I say…Amazing!

Father….allow me to ask you this morning for the strength to grasp this lesson.  Paul asked you three times to remove his faults…but in your great wisdom you left him as he was so you could use his human weakness to show more of your love. You have tried to teach me this lesson…at least three times now…so I ask in your name and power that you allow me to fully understand and grasp just how deep and wide your love is to use even my human weaknesses….which are many.  Forgive me this morning for all the times you sent me this message and I just did not see it…..and thank you for the sacrifice you made of your son…so that I can learn to be satisfied with all that I am…and allow you to use me to spread your love to others. Amen.

Indescribable

2 Corinthians 9: 6-8 -  Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.  And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

Paul is not done letting us know just how important giving is.  He just had to put in one more reminder…to make sure we understood that God wants this concept of giving to be something that we don’t just do.  Paul wants us to know that giving…true giving….cheerful…from the heart…done with a passion for all God’s people… creates blessings…rich blessings that permeate our lives and overflow from us into others.

Our reason for giving starts with Paul’s statement of closing in verse 15…. “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!”  We can never match or even come close to the gift that God gave us in his son…the sacrifice he made for us to have salvation is truly indescribable!  How can any of us who believe in Jesus…who have accepted his gift not want to lavish as much as we are able on others!

In our giving…when we do it cheerfully…from our hearts….from the firstfruits of all we have…we honor God.  We give him glory… and prove to him that he comes first in our lives.  And when he knows that in our hearts…our whole being… he means more to us than anything he gave us…we become partners in his work.  As we loosen the grip we think we have to have on our own abilities to survive…God takes over and provides exactly what we need...exactly when we need it.

Father…I thank you once again for your great gift of life.  I thank you for sharing your love with me by sacrificing your son in the cross…the greatest gift ever to all men.  I thank you for taking the time to love me…for your great mercy that you continue to shower on me every day.  Help me father to really grasp the meaning of giving this morning.  Help me father to really understand that all that I have and ever hope to be is in your hands.  Let this great gift you gave to me overflow from everything I do and say and show others what you can do for them. Amen!

Giving

2 Corinthians 8:11-15  - Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means.  For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have.  Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality.  At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality,  as it is written: "He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little."

This is not the first time Paul has told us the importance of giving.  He told us in Acts 20:35, “In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'” And let me sneak in the beginning of this chapter too…verses 2-5,  "Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God's will.”

Paul is reminding us here how important it is to give…as Christ gave to us.  God is so amazing…as if the gift of his son on the cross was not enough for us….he continues to bless us every day with life and breath…and for many of us…he adds bonuses like houses and cars...and nice salaries.  We may never figure out just why he has given all that he has to us…and why we still see so many people suffering in pure poverty.  The IFAD Rural Poverty report reported that in 2011… 1.4 billion people in developing countries live on $1.25 a day or less.  UNICEF reported in 2010 that at least 22,000 children die each day due to conditions of poverty.  That is so hard to imagine for me….I wake up….eat three squares a day….and 22,000 children are dying of starvation…every day?????

Paul says the answer is so simple…we share….we share what God blessed us with.  God has met all our needs…and maybe his plans for some of our overabundance is to share it with others. This is how the first church did it….they pooled their resources and helped out those in their community. Our hearts should be eager to give…God’s love should transform our way of life…to want to give …to find practical ways to share everything we have with others.  Paul even quotes scripture from exodus 16:18, “And when they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little. Each one gathered as much as he needed.”

Father…forgive me for my lack of generosity…. You have given me so much…and I give so little in return.  Help me to transform my attitude toward the resources you have provided for me and find more ways to share with others. Stretch my heart this morning to see the needs of others…..before I lavish myself with new things I really don’t need.  Forgive me for thinking that a new top…or shoes…or car….is more important that saving a starving child somewhere in our enormous world. Open my eyes to the needs around me…and speak clearly to me how can carry your compassion and love to others by sharing the rich wealth that you have blessed me with. Amen.

We Are New

2 Corinthians 5: 17-20 -   Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:  that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.

Paul loved these people so much….I love the way he writes from his heart…tries so hard to explain to them how God has transformed his life.  He knew well what he had done before God knocked him off his ‘high horse’…blinded him to get his attention…and then transformed him into a new creature…a great preacher…a writer…a great model of prayer…able to praise God in any situation.  He wanted the same for them…he wanted them to reconcile themselves to God…so he could wash them clean of all their sins too!

I walked the beach for the first time in years last night.  I looked down at the smooth sand…freshly washed perfect from the rush of water as the tide went out. Every night...the water washes the sand clean of its imperfections…..every morning the sand is smooth…shiny and new. It only took seconds….the imperfections faded instantly as the water rushed back out to sea.  The imperfect sand blended back into the rest of the sea floor.  The simplicity of God’s plan in nature…. is also the key to how we should apply this great verse in our lives.

Oh how we need to let God wash us clean every morning…we need to lift our heads off the pillows and pray that God allow us to rise in our transformed bodies….and leave all that sin…those mistakes…that heavy baggage in the bed.  But most of us try to hold on to that past…we get up with it…we carry it around…heavy as it is…it is so easy for Satan to remind us of how bad we WERE. We have a hard time just letting the past wash out of our lives…like the water cleans the beach. Satan knows this weakness of ours…he reminds us of our mistakes as often as he gets a chance….even tries to trick us into thinking they are still a part of who we are.

I do believe my past is a part of me….it has shaped me into what I am today. It is my message of hope to others…to share what God has done for me…to see the wonder of what he has brought me through.  Our human brains can never forget what we were…but that should be the extent of its effect. Paul is telling us here…that we should concentrate on the new us…the creature that God changed us into when we asked him to be a part of our life.  God is using us to spread his gospel…we are to use the message of how he changed us to be his ambassadors!

Father…thank you this morning for your blood that washes me clean each day.  Help me to stop picking up those heavy suitcases of all my sins….show me how to let them go...to let them wash back into the past as the sand washes back into the sea.  Help me to concentrate on the new me you are making….and how the story of my transformation can speak your love to others.  Amen.

Jars of Clay

2 Corinthians 4: 7-11 -  But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.  We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.

Pottery….it begins as a raw slab of ugly…wet…clay.  Someone very skilled takes it and applies pressure…pinches it….pulls it…turns it into something useful.  It is allowed to dry….then the most useful…more beautiful pots are painted with a glaze…then put in a very hot fire….so the materials in the glaze can melt…and form a protective barrier from the things it will be asked to carry in it.  The end result…a shiny…beautiful vessel…useful to whoever buys it.

Paul knew well the jar of clay that God had molded him into.  Everyday that he was persecuted….beaten…ridiculed for what he believed….his jar of clay became more beautiful. The glory of God radiated from Paul….because he knew that when we submit our Earthly weaknesses to God….God takes over and makes us strong.  The master potter is at work in all that believe in him…..molding our fragile Earthly…worldly bodies into strong vessels that show his glory in all that we do.

I love the promise that this scripture gives us.  If we but yield to God….throw all our cares to him…release the tendencies to fix things our self…his power will start to teach us how to depend on him. Like Paul…we will learn how to withstand pressure from the world….and not be crushed….we will look at the moments of life that totally baffled us…and not despair….we will endure those moments of ridicule ….and smile in contentment. 

Paul sums it up later in verse 15-18, “ All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.  Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Father…I thank you for the words you gave to Paul.  Help me to yield to you this day and allow you to mold me with the pressures of this world…help me to learn from the many things that have happened in my life that I have no answers for.  I give myself to you ….all the raw clay …and ask for strength to wait for you to make me a vessel…a beautiful jar of clay…overflowing with the love you have shown me…able to encourage others…able to witness for you and help others believe. Thank you for not only buying me with your son’s blood on that cross…but taking my rawness….and shaping it into something useful for you! Amen.

Confidence

2 Corinthians 3: 2-5 - You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God.  Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.

What a beautiful scripture...that tells us that we are God’s reference….a living testimonial to the love of God. We should be confident in who we are and what Christ has done for us because God himself wrote our letter of recommendation on our heart.  Moses got to watch God write his very rules of righteous living on heavy tablets of stone…but we have the privilege of having the Spirit of God write our directions for sharing his love on our very hearts...if we ask him to come into our heart and live there.

My first thought when I read this last night was how very weak I am in the area of confidence…as I have read and studied…I am gaining confidence...but many times feel very ill equipped to be a vessel in any capacity for God. This scripture brought all those moments to mind when I was afraid to speak in public…..babbled out a weak public prayer in Sunday School class….went to great trouble to pass the microphone to another singer in the choir…and the moment each morning when I say with uplifted face…father help me write this day…I have not clue what you want put on this page.

Here’s the magic thing that I cling to…somehow…even when I try to sidestep a singing job…clear my voice to stall before I pray out loud…sip a bit of coffee while my brain wakes up in the morning….the Holy Spirit of God ALWAYS shows up and takes control…and somehow…someone is blessed…or encouraged…or taught something new about Christ…from something I was LED to say….or something I was LED to do….amazing! If I put my confidence in God….if I believe and have faith in him…he can saturate my life with his confidence…..again….amazing

God can do anything through us that we allow him too…even provide the confidence we lack in ourselves.  Because we are allowed to see him fully…just like Moses.  But unlike Moses…who had to veil his face….to cover up the glory of God…we are called to let his glory shine to the far corners of our world…we who have allowed him to live in our hearts…well Paul’s words in verses 16-18 are better than mine to make this point, “But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Father…fresh tears fall this morning as I pray…to realize just how big you really are…and what love you have allowed me to tap into…I am so overwhelmed at what is possible when I truly grasp the power of what YOU can do through me….when I  fully let go of ME.  Help me Lord to grasp hold of YOUR confidence….and help me do what you have planned for me to do.  Take my heart this morning and write your recommendations for the next segment of my journey with you.  Allow me to understand each direction you write and have the confidence to quickly carry it out…no matter what you call me to do.  Amen.

Comfort

2 Corinthians 1: 3-5 -  Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.  For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

Paul well understood the concept of comfort…he needed God’s comfort many times in his lifetime.  Even though he was received warmly in many places… convincing many of the need to repent of their sins and be saved…he was also beaten… imprisoned… stoned… and ridiculed in others.  Paul had been comforted by the father himself... and had learned through this comfort how to comfort others.

I remember the first few moments after I lost my husband Mitchell.  The nurses kept asking me, is there someone we can call?”  I had already called out to God. I had lifted up my disbelief to him, in total incredulity that he would take my husband only one month after we were married.  At the same time, I was trying to comfort his sister next to me,  trying to bring my own overwhelming emotions under some kind of control.  The cry of that initial pain was so crushing to my physical and emotional being that I felt numb to such a question.  I had cried out to my God for answers, who else could possibly help me now?

These verses tell us that there is someone out there that God has trained to comfort us in such a time, the blessed father …and even in my initial pain…he was preparing me to be such a comfort as well.  I knew God was with me, but I craved someone next to me that was able to share fully in my pain.  Only a moment passed before I knew that it was to be my dear friend and pastor.  She came, without hesitation and offered me herself. I can’t remember her words to me that afternoon, but I remember well the hug, the sharing of tears, the ear to listen to my pitiful cries of pain.  She was there for me in any way I needed her. She understood my pain fully…for she had lost her father.  I am sure as I look back on that day that God chose her for me.  He knew that he had trained her to be my shoulder. What I really needed was a hug, a person to cry with, someone to listen to me cry out my questions of disbelief, and just hold my hand through the initial pain.

This is the call that Paul is reminding us of here….to not just take the father’s comfort and store it up for ourselves….but to learn from it….to use it to help others…to allow the love he gives us to overflow into comfort for others. That’s why he says a few verses later in verse 6-7,  If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.  And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”

Paul makes one other point her in verse 9, “ Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”  Wow…his sufferings taught him how to rely on the father…for everything.  We are to rely on God fully…to completely let go of our own wisdom and rely on the wisdom of God.  It is in God’s perfect wisdom that we are able to comprehend how we could even begin to do the work that Paul did…to allow his love to so control our hearts and lives that we do nothing that is not God’s will.

Father…thank you once again for my pain….it has taught me not to rely on myself …but to turn to Christ…who is my everything.  Take my pain and help me to learn form it….to be a comfort to others….to encourage those who have lost loved ones….to help them to move past the pain of loss and help others too.  Forgive me father for the times that I have failed to show this love and comfort to others….for allowing Satan to trick me into a pity party…for wallowing in the loneliness…for allowing it to stop me from learning more about your love. Amen