Week 33 | Day 1 - New Testament Reading
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Week 33 | Day 1 - New Testament Reading
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Today's Reading
2 Corinthians 12
Proverbs 21:8–10
A Thorny Truth
Around AD 42 before any of Paul’s missionary journeys—or fourteen years before Paul wrote his epistles to the Corinthians—God gave the apostle an amazing vision of heaven. He heard “inexpressible words” and received revelations of “surpassing greatness” (2 Cor. 11:4, 7). This experience, though a privilege, also came after the fact with “a thorn in the flesh” to keep Paul humble. Paul repeatedly asked the Lord to remove the pain. The Lord’s answer speaks to us as well.
“And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10)
The verb tenses in the original language communicate a helpful emphasis: “‘My grace is [continually] sufficient for you; for My power is [continually] made perfect in weakness.’” In other words, our continual weaknesses—and even our physical pains—remain the stage upon which God’s power continually works in us and develops us. The pain kept Paul in a proper state of mind—humble, rather than boasting in the experience.
Paul’s amazing vision of glory gives weight to his earlier words to the Corinthians: “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17). Paul experienced both.
As we ponder our own physical weaknesses, we can apply Paul’s thorny truth as well. Our brief, little life here on earth represents the only time in all of eternity when we can glorify God in the midst of struggle.
In heaven, we’ll honor Christ to His face. But now we have the privilege of honoring Him in the face of struggle—by faith, not by sight.
Question: Have you ever considered struggle as a temporary privilege? Take the time to read the scene leading up to Acts 5:41, and write some words of application below.
(Photo Above: Fountain of Peirene in Corinth. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
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