Leading from Weakness, Dealing With Strength

UV3295/10000 Leading From Weakness, Dealing with Strength

But He has said to me, “ My grace is sufficient for you ( My loving kindness and My mercy are more than enough- always available- regardless of the situation); for My power is being perfected and is completed and shows itself most effectively in your weakness. 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.

2 Corinthians 12 v 9


Paul suffered an unnamed and undescribed affliction that the Lord did not remove even after he persisted in prayer. Paul accepted it as the will of God to keep him humble, empty and receptive of the grace of the Lord. The Lord assured him that in all of life’s situations, His grace is sufficient for him. The emptiness, the humility, the receptiveness of believers is needed as a prerequisite to fill us with abounding power of God and for us to experience the full extent of His love and mercy. Paul reveled in these times of apparent weakness, brokenness, extreme need and dependency on the Lord. In fact, this was his default state and not an occasional golden moment of revelation.

The paradox Paul presents to every believer is not to feel exalted in our little successes, skills, strengths, accomplishments, breakthroughs, titles, positions, possessions, personality but to revel in our weaknesses, failures, areas of dire need and challenge. If we dwell on the former, we will be too full of ourselves and of little or no use to the Lord and His kingdom. His indwelling Spirit and power seeks to reside in hearts that are needy and bleeding, weeping souls, not weeping out of self pity but out of compassion for others and the need for the compassion of the Lord to flow and overflow in our lives. When we receive Jesus and the Holy Spirit into our hearts and lives, His mighty resurrection power begins to work in us and work through us. But, to fill, complete, perfect the working of His grace and power in our lives, we need to constantly empty ourselves and correspondingly fill ourselves with His grace.

Our weaknesses are not threats but opportunities for the Lord to work in us, to manifest His awesome power. Instead of hiding our weaknesses in shame from the Lord as we do from others, we should bare it all to the Lord. Instead of hiding like Adam and Eve from the Lord, we hide in Him. We take it to the Lord in prayer. It can be a weakness of body, mind or spirit, of ability or of character. If we are not aware of some weaknesses, we should ask the Holy Spirit to reveal our hidden infirmities of nature and He will enable us to deal with it. The Word of God is like a mirror for our weaknesses. It accurately reflects to us what our physical eyes cannot perceive. What of our strengths and gifts and abilities? We should use these fully for the glory of God, not our own, but like the cherubim coyly cover it with the wings of prayer and the word, to hide it from the gaze of men. If anyone praises us on account of the latter, we should attribute it again to the grace of the Lord.