Power Made Perfect in Weakness

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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
(2 Corinthians 12:9-10 ESV)

What an amazing passage.  What a comforting word from our wonderful, compassionate Lord.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed in this world.  Overwhelmed at home.  Overwhelmed at work.  Overwhelmed by the demands so many people can make of us…or overwhelmed by loneliness.

No matter the situation, though, we are made an incredible promise by our God: His grace is sufficient for us and in that grace, His power is made perfect through the weakness we are enduring.

First, His grace.  Whatever the Lord allows into our lives, His grace is sufficient.  That’s another way of saying God is enough.  Jesus is enough.  Though we may seem overwhelmed, He is actually carrying us along.

Second, His power.  Through these seeminly overwhelming trials, His power is made perfect.  What does this mean?  It means that at these times of weakness, we can actually see – or look back and know, that our strength and power to persevere came from the Lord.  It was Him that allowed the trial and He who carried us through it.  What comfort it is to finally see and know the Lord’s power.

Paul knew this so well that he could endure any soft of hardship because he knew that in such, God’s power would be on display.

My prayer today is that my wife, my kids and myself would know that God’s power is made perfect in weakness.

I hope you have a blessed day.

Godly Grief Produces Repentance

As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.  For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.  (2 Corinthians 7:9-10 ESV)

When our children get into trouble, they will often tell us how sorry they are.  But we are often left to wonder, are they sorry because they understand that their actions are wrong and how they have wronged someone else, or are they sorry because they got caught?

Of course, like my children (or perhaps my children are like me), I also struggle with this.  We make a mistake, everything breaks loose and we’re left in damage control mode.  Am I sorry because of what I did and who I hurt or am I sorry because I caused a mess?

Paul deals with a similar issue in the passage above.  He’s writing to the Corinthians and in a previous letter, he had to admonish them.  And he rejoices over how they responded.  He notes that he’s not happy because they got caught, but he rejoices because they understood the severity of the situation.  They were caught, if you will, but this led to repentance.  Specifically, it was godly grief that they encountered and this produced repentance.

As a reminder, repentance is agreeing with God that you’ve sinned, understanding the severity of your sin (i.e. that you’ve sinned against God) and turning from this sin.  There’s an intellectual agreement, but it’s not just intellectual.  It’s also knowing that this sin is un-Biblical and is a sin against God.  Because of that, you want to go in the opposite direction of your sin.

We can do something wrong and feel bad about it, but Paul says that this type of “worldly grief” produces death.  Godly grief, on the other hand, “produces a salvation that leads to repentance without regret.”  Why is there a difference?  Because in the first case, we are trying to handle our problems or mistakes (i.e. our sins) under our own power.  We might be able to pacify a situation we’ve caused, but we’ll never be able to fully pay for that sin against God.

In the second case, we know that, ultimately, our sin is against God.  Yes, we’ve caused earthly problems, but our sin is against a holy God.  For this problem to be solved, we need a savior.  We need Jesus.  As Paul mentioned earlier in 2 Corinthians 5:18:

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:18 ESV)

If our sin pushes us back to ourselves, we are lost because we cannot account for that sin on our own.

But if, in our sin, we look to the atoning work of Jesus Christ, we are found.  We are reconciled to God through Him.  Or, as Paul writes, “godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation.”

If you aren’t reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, come to Him.  He is waiting.

I hope you have a blessed day.

A New Creation

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  (2 Corinthians 5:17-21 ESV)

If we are in Christ, we are new.  The new has come.  A new creation.  We are free from our sin debt and now free to serve the Lord.  We also have a new hope – Jesus Christ, and we have the promise of eternal life with Him.

As we change from “old” to “new,” we also obtain, from the Lord, the ministry of reconciliation.  Not reconciling the world as Christ did via paying for our sins on the cross, rather our ministry of reconciliation is taking this wonderful message of eternal life to the world.  We are, as the passage notes, truly “ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.”

After delivering this gospel message of hope, Paul implores his readers to be reconciled to God.  Unless we come to God through Jesus Christ, we are not reconciled to God.  Once we do, though, in Jesus we “become the righteousness of God.”

I hope you have a blessed day.

But for a Moment

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. (2 Corinthians 4:16-17 ESV)

Yesterday was a tough day.  So many of our friends and acquaintances are dealing with some really serious and tough issues right now.  Prostate cancer, breast cancer, pituitary tumors, blood disorders, car crashes.  It can get a bit overwhelming.

So it was a blessing to read the above passage this morning.

Our hope today is not avoiding a car crash – although that would be nice, and it’s not about hoping the doctor won’t call with bad news.  Our hope today is Jesus Christ.  Yes, our outer self is wasting away.  It’s easy to see that with each passing birthday.  But our inner self is being renewed – day by day.  We are being transformed and renewed – in a spiritual way – each and every day.

Paul describe’s all the bad news as “light momentary affliction(s).”  Wow.  We don’t really think about all of these hardships as “light” or “momentary.”  To us they are devastating and heavy and they seem as if they will last forever.  They are not.  They are for but a moment.  And the even better news is they are preparing us for “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”  They are preparing us for eternity with God.  Yes, the afflictions are but for a moment, but we are being prepared for an eternity with Jesus Christ.

I hope you have a blessed day.