Boast In Your Weaknesses...

Last week, John Bevere spoke to our church family about living an Extraordinary life and how God's GRACE allows us to do that. I decided to do a study of his about living an Extraordinary life. As I've begun to journey through his book, Extraordinary, I've already learned so much just in two chapters! Today I was looking through last Sunday's sermon notes and I came across 2 Corinthians 12:9.  Verses 7-10 in my NIV version reads,

⁷ or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ 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. ¹⁰That 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.

Boast in my weaknesses!? What... I'm not sure I'm quite understanding yet... so I looked up the Message version of the verse which reads: (v. 7-10)

 Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn't get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,  

 "My grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness."

Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.

In this passage, Paul shares that evil was constantly reminding him of the 'thorn in his flesh' which to us could be a handicap, it could be temptation, an addiction, a bad relationship, or any sin that we may be struggling with. Satan doesn't only work to tempt us with obvious sins like alcoholism, drug abuse and cussing, but he can weasel his way into our minds and make us think of all of our flaws and weaknesses instead of our strengths and powers given to us by God. It's Satan's bait to draw us in through our minds but God says, 'All you need is my GRACE'.... that's it!?!

John Bevere defined 'Grace' as, 'God's empowerment that gives us the ability to go beyond our natural ability.' Grace is God's POWER.

So back to boasting about my weaknesses... God says that his power and strength is apparent in our weaknesses. HE is the one that delivers us from temptation, bad thoughts, bad relationships and addiction. When we overcome these things that Satan puts as 'thorns in our skin,' we have accomplished it by God's GRACE (his power). He is glorified when we overcome these things.

Being human, we will never be perfect. It's easy to try and lean on worldly ways to achieve our dreams and goals so when 'thorns' are thrown at us, it's easy to lean on our own understanding and 'worldly' advice. Proverbs 3:5-6 comes to mind:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and don't lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.

As a young adult, it's easy for Satan to throw 'thorns' and thoughts like... "Where am I going in life?" "Why am I not getting married yet?"... or even better..."When am I going to find my great, loving, christian husband God's promised me?" These thoughts often lead us to focus on our weaknesses and temptations, but God says lean on me and my GRACE will get you past these temptations that lead to weaknesses and sin.

I didn't get far through my sermon notes this morning, but 2 Corinthians 12 definitely put some things together and connected some important dots. I love how when learning a new lesson, God connected one of my favorite verses to it!

'Thank you Jesus for using just a few words to impact me in such a powerful way! Please seal this lesson in my heart and in my mind for when temptations and weaknesses lead me astray and off the path you have set for me. I know you have great things in store for me and my generation! Please use my weaknesses to glorify you and your power along the way!'