Strength for Today

For the past two weeks I have been struggling as to how to deal with a portion of scripture when I was to preach on it – yesterday. I have been following a series of sermons describing the second letter to the Corinthian people…. Written by the Apostle Paul, the letter follows a very strong letter 1 Corinthians that dealt with a number of topics that the church needed to hear about.

The scripture that I preached on yesterday was 2 Corinthians 12:7 – 10. The text of the scripture reads…

2 Corinthians 12: 7
To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But 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. 10That 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.

There are times in a minister’s life when the scripture or account that you are preaching about is simply part of the story and must be talked about – but it doesn’t have a great deal to do with where you are personally. This time it was different… this one stuck deeply.

(The next 2 paragraphs are for people that didn’t hear the sermon – apologies to the others that did…)

While traveling through my life for these past two months the thought has been there all the time about “thorns in the flesh” and how this applies to every day life. It is so clear as you study the context of this scripture that Paul is writing about “people” and “situations” – not only physical handicaps… like eyesight and speech impediments.

Through out the Old Tetstament the word “thorn” is used by the writers to describe the oppression that is on the People of Israel or that will be brought on the People of Israel from time to time. In fact God uses “thorns” to get through to his people.

All of us have thorns in the flesh. They come at different times and are there for very different reasons. How we deal with these is up to a choice that we make.
Paul states that he asked God to take his away… three times… but God answered him by saying that “My Grace was sufficient for you”. Then God follows that by saying a stunning thing – “for my power is made perfect in weakness.” In other words when you are the weakest – you will become strong because of God’s power.

I have a strong sense today that this is becoming truth to you as it is to me. Personally I have felt a complete lack of power many times in the past two months as I prepared to preach on this. Through what has been happening to me – I have begun to understand a brand new power that is not my own. The revelation that it is God moving in and around me is almost overwhelming.

Like Paul I thank God for my weakness – for it is at that moment of realization that his strength is all that I need. In fact it is what takes over the impossible and overwhelming weakness.

I know that this may seem heavy to take into your being.

God is our complete strength. He is the focus of all that we do and say – at least He can be. In recognizing that we have no more to give – He then steps in and becomes Our God.

What are you facing today? Maybe I should ask, “Who are you facing today?”
God is there for you. His Grace is ready to sweep in… be applied to your situation in everyway. He is your strength for today.

I close by offering some words from John Maxwell on this idea of Thorns.

John Maxwell says… of Paul and his Thorn in the Flesh… quote…

Instead of getting angry at his thorn and the way that it slowed him down, Paul relished how weak it made him. Why? It kept him in close dependence on the POWER of GOD (2 Cor. 2:10)

Paul understood that the weaker he was… the stronger God was within him. When there is less of you as a leader, there is more of God as THE LEADER. Only wise leaders can understand this paradox.

Paul practices the Law of Intuition. What did Paul’s leadership intuition enable him to understand? He recognized that….
1. His opposition was not from God.(v7)
2. He must seek God’s answer to his problem (v 8)
3. God’s answer was Grace ( v9)
4. Grace is perfected in his imperfections.(v9)
5. He should boast about his weaknesses not brag about his strengths(9)
6. The tougher his problems, the greater the Grace(10)

~ Pastor Murray ~

Now... what if the Handicap - produces a situation where there are many thorns in the flesh... please read the following...

The account of Nick Vujicic

My name is Nick Vujicic and I give God the Glory for how He has used my testimony to touch thousands of hearts around the world! I was born without limbs and doctors have no medical explanation for this birth "defect". As you can imagine, I was faced with many challenges and obstacles.

"Consider it pure joy, my Brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds."

....To count our hurt, pain and struggle as nothing but pure joy? As my parents were Christians, and my Dad even a Pastor of our church, they knew that verse very well. However, on the morning of the 4th of December 1982 in Melbourne (Australia), the last two words on the minds of my parents was "Praise God!". Their firstborn son had been born without limbs! There were no warnings or time to prepare themselves for it. The doctors we shocked and had no answers at all! There is still no medical reason why this had happened and Nick now has a Brother and Sister who were born just like any other baby.

The whole church mourned over my birth and my parents were absolutely devastated. Everyone asked, "if God is a God of Love, then why would God let something this bad happen to not just anyone, but dedicated Christians?" My Dad thought I wouldn't survive for very long, but tests proved that I was a healthy baby boy just with a few limbs missing.

Understandably, my parents had strong concern and evident fears of what kind of life I'd be able to lead. God provided them strength, wisdom and courage through those early years and soon after that I was old enough to go to school.

The law in Australia didn't allow me to be integrated into a main-stream school because of my physical disability. God did miracles and gave my Mom the strength to fight for the law to be changed. I was one of the first disabled students to be integrated into a main-stream school.

I liked going to school, and just try to live life like everyone else, but it was in my early years of school where I encountered uncomfortable times of feeling rejected, weird and bullied because of my physical difference. It was very hard for me to get used to, but with the support of my parents, I started to develop attitudes and values which helped me overcome these challenging times. I knew that I was different but on the inside I was just like everyone else. There were many times when I felt so low that I wouldn't go to school just so I didn't have to face all the negative attention. I was encouraged by my parents to ignore them and to try start making friends by just talking with some kids. Soon the students realized that I was just like them, and starting there God kept on blessing me with new friends.

There were times when I felt depressed and angry because I couldn't change the way I was, or blame anyone for that matter. I went to Sunday School and learnt that God loves us all and that He cares for you. I understood that love to a point as a child, but I didn't understand that if God loved me why did He make me like this? Is it because I did something wrong? I thought I must have because out of all the kids at school, I'm the only weird one. I felt like I was a burden to those around me and the sooner I go, the better it'd be for everyone. I wanted to end my pain and end my life at a young age, but I am thankful once again, for my parents and family who were always there to comfort me and give me strength.

Due to my emotional struggles I had experienced with bullying, self esteem and loneliness, God has implanted a passion of sharing my story and experiences to help others cope with whatever challenge they have in their life and let God turn it into a blessing. To encourage and inspire others to live to their fullest potential and not let anything get in the way of accomplishing their hopes and dreams.

One of the first lessons that I have learnt was not to take things for granted.
"And we know that in all things God works for the best for those who love Him."

That verse spoke to my heart and convicted me to the point where that I know that there is no such thing as luck, chance or coincidence that these "bad" things happen in our life.

I had complete peace knowing that God won't let anything happen to us in our life unless He has a good purpose for it all. I completely gave my life to Christ at the age of fifteen after reading John 9. Jesus said that the reason the man was born blind was "so that the works of God may be revealed through Him." I truly believed that God would heal me so I could be a great testimony of His

Awesome Power. Later on I was given the wisdom to understand that if we pray for something, if it's God's will, it'll happen in His time. If it's not God's will for it to happen, then I know that He has something better.

I now see that Glory revealed as He is using me just the way I am and in ways others can't be used.

I am now twenty-one years old and have completed a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Financial Planning and Accounting. I am also a motivational speaker and love to go out and share my story and testimony wherever opportunities become available. I have developed talks to relate to and encourage students through topics that challenge today's teenagers. I am also a speaker in the corporate sector.

I have a passion for reaching out to youth and keep myself available for whatever God wants me to do, and wherever He leads, I follow.

I have many dreams and goals that I have set to achieve in my life. I want to become the best witness I can be of God's Love and Hope, to become an international inspirational speaker and be used as a vessel in both Christian and non-Christian venues. I want to become financially independent by the age of 25, through real estate investments, to modify a car for me to drive and to be interviewed and share my story on the "Oprah Winfrey Show"! Writing several best-selling books has been one of my dreams and I hope to finish writing my first by the end of the year. It will be called "No Arms, No Legs, No Worries!"

I believe that if you have the desire and passion to do something, and if it's God's will, you will achieve it in good time. As humans, we continually put limits on ourselves for no reason at all! What's worse is putting limits on God who can do all things. We put God in a "box". The awesome thing about the Power of God, is that if we want to do something for God, instead of focusing on our capability, concentrate on our availability for we know that it is God through us and we can't do anything without Him. Once we make ourselves available for God's work, guess whose capabilities we rely on? God's!