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Welcome to today’s Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation covering 2 Corinthians 12:9 wherein we are challenged in our thinking about true power and the blessing of personal 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.
Imagine Jesus saying the same thing to you that He said to Paul. You have trouble of some kind that you are bringing before Him, asking that there might be relief from it, and He tells you, “My grace is sufficient for you.” Perhaps He has impressed this very Scripture upon your mind when you’ve been in such a situation. But what exactly is Jesus saying by this and what do we learn from Paul’s reaction?
Jesus wants us to know what it looks like for Him to be our Master. The one word description we have in this text is “grace”. He provides us with good things apart from merit. And apparently, He thinks He knows better than we do the ways in which this grace should be dispensed. He doesn’t berate Paul for requesting relief but essentially tells him, “I am enough for you as I show My might through you.” This would be so very hard to accept…unless our response is one of pure faith, and that is what we see from Paul. “OK, well good then. I’m all about You using my life to make Yourself look awesome.” We don’t know if this was his immediate response, but this is at least the matured one. In Paul we see a complete trust that God knows what He is doing with us and that what He is doing is the absolute best that could be done. Why is it the best? Because it makes Jesus look the most incredible. We might struggle with that idea because it seems selfish of God, but what we can’t miss is that Paul seems to be exceedingly happy in knowing this very thing about Him!
Whether or not we can respond to Jesus like Paul did is a real test for us. It makes us ask the question, “Am I really wanting more than anything God’s agenda for this life I’m walking through?” If you’re like me (hopefully not in this case), there is almost a tension felt at certain points where you’re afraid to grow knowing that God might accentuate weaknesses in your life to further display His power! But as I wrestle with this, I’m quickly reminded of the pride that rests behind that mentality. I am under the impression that I have some sort of holy strength inherent within me that is worth keeping…my goodness, pure arrogance on my part that shows just how incredibly low my standards are for seeing actual power at work. I need to let go.
Lord, make me to fully want Your way with me that I might know the joy of seeing You display Your greatness through my humble existence.
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2 Responses to “2 Corinthians 12:9–Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation”
i heard a guy talk about God showing His power through our weakness this morning. And then, I kid you not, I was thinking, "which verse is that from?" not 10 seconds before I got on DJ and read this! I just thought that was cool. It actually happened like, 2 days ago also.
So cool! It's so neat when things line up like that to remind us that God is so intimately involved in the moment by moment of our lives:)