PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
2 Corinthians 12:9–10
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.
CONSIDER THIS
Am I enough? That’s a question that plagues me and I know I’m not the only one. Late one night I was mindlessly scrolling through social media as the worries in my heart and mind were spinning at a frenzied pace. Yes, I know that’s not a good way to spend my time and I don’t recommend it. But it was as if the advertising fairies could see into my soul and knew the burden I was carrying because, at that moment, an ad popped up for a sweatshirt that caught my eye and caused me to stop scrolling. On the back were these words, “Dear person behind me, the world is a better place with you in it. Love, the person in front of you.” I could imagine myself walking along a sidewalk or hallway, coming up behind this person, and believing that God had directed me to see it as a sign from Him. I needed that message.
We all have weaknesses, and they feel like neon signs hovering over us, pointing down and telling everyone why we’re not good enough and where we are failing. And yet, Jesus doesn’t care what your neon signs say, in fact, I don’t think He even sees the signs. When Paul wrote these words to the Corinthians, he wasn’t trying to hide his weaknesses. He was boasting about them! He had been given a “thorn” in his flesh which tormented him. In his culture, physical ailments were often viewed as signs of sin and were causes for shame and embarrassment. We don’t know what that thorn was and I don’t believe we’re meant to know because we all carry some thorn in our lives. Are you thinking about yours right now?
Paul didn’t want the thorn and he begged the Lord to take it away, but for reasons known only to God, His answer to Paul was no. So instead of pity or bitterness that God wouldn’t answer his prayer, Paul turned the tables on the thorn and decided to boast about it. Why would he boast? So that Christ’s power might rest on him. In the Amplified Bible, we read, “Therefore, I will all the more gladly boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ [may completely enfold me and] may dwell in me.” Paul knew that his weaknesses would not limit his witness, but it was the weakness itself that would be the sign of God’s power.
If you are tired of trying to be smart enough, talented enough, strong enough, successful enough, or worthy enough, remember that the power of the Holy Spirit dwells in you because you are a child of the Most High King and it is not your weakness that defines you, but the one who dwells inside of you. And yes, I did buy that sweatshirt from social media and when I look at the mirror, I see the words that are written on the front, “You are enough.”
THE PRAYER
Lord, thank You that we don’t have to be enough because You are enough. For those of us who are weighed down by our weaknesses today, remind us that it is Your power and Your presence that makes us enough. Amen.
THE QUESTIONS
When have you felt like you were not enough? What promises from Scripture encouraged you? How can the promise of the Lord’s presence give you boldness to face a worry that you need to surrender?
For the Awakening,
Susan Kent
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4 Responses
Christ the Body Builder Wants You to Love (With Christ’s Power) the People He Puts in Front of You
When I read Matthew chapter 16, I hear Jesus saying that He wants to build His followers into the body of Christ — Spirit-led community gatherings of Christ-hearers who are personally experiencing and sharing the rock of direct revelation from God the Father with one another. (I woke up with this paragraph forming in my heart this morning and finished it before I saw today’s Wake-Up Call.)
I believe that when viewed within the context leading up to Paul’s reception of the “thorn in his flesh”, it seems that it was sent by God to help Paul remain humble. Scripture makes it abundantly clear that human pride in self is the biggest obstacle to our being filled with the Spirit of the Living God. To be useful in being used in the expansion of the KOG, we must remain empty of ourselves. Depending on a number of circumstances, it’s more difficult for some of us than others to remain humble. This is why Paul warned us that we should be careful not to be “puffed up” by our conceit. (1 Timothy 3:6)
Yes, we don’t know what the thorn was, but Scripture tells us why it was placed.
Pride.
2 Corinthians 12:7-8
So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations,[a] a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.
And we know who placed the thorn in his side, a messenger of Satan-a demon.
Have you ever had a pain in your side? It makes you bend over, clutch the pained area, and sometimes gasp for air. But what it does is keep your mind on the pain and not on yourself. If it’s severe enough, it can drop you to your knees, which is where God wanted Paul. And, like Job, God allowed Satan to take him there.
Maybe Paul’s conceit was becoming too much like when he was known as Saul, the persecutor of Christians. But we know God used the thorn to get Paul’s attention back on God and purpose.
Sometimes, God will do the same for us.
Staying 💪’n Christ
Ephesians 6:10
Finally, stay strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.
Saints
Great comments!
But Here is a but…
Nowhere in scripture does it say the thorn remained or does it say god actually said no
In fact Paul got THE answer we all have
My grace is sufficient
And indeed it is
I bet Paul’s thorn became not overwhelming but a minor inconvenience
I bet people looked not at the thorn but on allllll the miraculous healings that were his by the spirits power and saw not the thorn but the power of god
Faith does not put up with satan
It overcomes him and his thorns