My grace is sufficient in your weakness
"My grace is sufficient in your weakness."
As a dad, I am confronted with my own tendency to be a saviour. I often try to get my wife out of a jam. I brought her roses yesterday, just to try to make her happy. I know this is a good effort, but sometimes it misses the point. On another note, I try to keep my son Silas from saying something in public that he should not say. And while manors (sp) are good, and while my love for my wife is given by God, I often overlook my own weaknesses when I try to "save" somebody. I cannot save anybody. The church has often described this ministry as the ministry and work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the presence of Jesus Christ, for our present world. The Holy Spirit will accomplish the work that God began before time. But that is lofty thinking.
While God uses our weak vessels to proclaim His love, we can often get in his way because we assume that we have to be "moral and upstanding" in order to proclaim Christ. We rob ourselves of our weakness, and we therefore rob ourselves of our identity. This grieves the spirit of God. I know this from experience. When I try to be something that I am not, it always fails. We rob God of His grace, and His sovereignty, when we try to shelter others from our problems, our mistakes, our weakness.
As Paul was writing to the Corinthians, he had three things in mind. One, he had His God in mind. Two, he had the Corinthian people in mind. Third, he had himself in mind. Paul knew that God was a God that spoke through human weakness. Paul knew that the story of God, included, and surrounded, a God that emptied Himself out, in weakness. Paul, like no other, understood weakness. Paul had killed. Paul had ordered to kill. And Paul was perhaps a man that suffered from mental illness, or bad eye site. In whatever way you can try to figure it out, Paul was a man acquainted with weakness. As he was converted, on the road to Damascus, he was given a quick experience of weakness. He says to us that he spent three days walking around blind.
Three things happen to Paul that bespeak his entire life, a life of weakness. All of these occurences are reliably told by Luke, the physician, who wrote down his words in the book of Acts. Chapter 9 is the location of Paul's conversion.
I may be wrong, but I think AA's first spiritual truth is "We must acknowledge our need for help." AA was founded by a Catholic. I may be wrong, but I bet you the founder of AA got his ideas from the coversion of Saul into Paul. Change began when Saul asked God "What do you want me to do?"
It was Ananias that was "a man that was devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there." It was Ananias that Saul was to come into contact with, and it was Ananias that God used to help heal Saul. Pivotal to this passage is a clear remembrance of Paul's weakness. The weakness, in body, was overcome by the help of Ananias, and, ultimately, helped by the community of the faithful. When we experience weakness, we must not be afraid. "Do not fear, for I am with you." Jesus wants us to live inside our weakness, and even to embrace our weakness, as a way to more openly depend on Him. Ultimately, God wants our weakness to drive us to our knees as it did Saul. "Lord, what shall I Do?"
And so we have it. The beginning of the Christian church was leveled on the knees of Saul, a man in need of bodily healing of his weakness. How much more do we need this healing today? How much more do we need to hear from the Lord in our time? Today we need the bodily healing of our very real weaknesses. These weaknesses are not contrived, they are not false, they are not dreamed. They are real. And before the Christian church was leveled by Paul, it was leveled on the cross. And we are embraced and delighted upon, in these weaknesses, by the God whose son died on the cross. Our weakness must no scare us, but rather, they must drive us in one direction. And that direction is into the love of the one. This one, this Jesus, hung in weakness on the cross. This one, this Jesus, inspired the hymn that we find in Phillipians 2. Jesus not only inspired these words, he was the complete representation of God, in human form, of these words. Jesus was God, and Jesus was human. What?
Who being in the very nature God, He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.
But he made himself nothing, and emptied himself.
He became obedient to death, even death on a cross.
My own weakness drove me to the foot of the cross. In the cross I have been healed, because in the cross there is Jesus, and in Jesus there is His Father, and in this trinity, there is life. This is the only life that will live forever. This is why it is called, in scripture, "Eternal life."
As a dad, I am confronted with my own tendency to be a saviour. I often try to get my wife out of a jam. I brought her roses yesterday, just to try to make her happy. I know this is a good effort, but sometimes it misses the point. On another note, I try to keep my son Silas from saying something in public that he should not say. And while manors (sp) are good, and while my love for my wife is given by God, I often overlook my own weaknesses when I try to "save" somebody. I cannot save anybody. The church has often described this ministry as the ministry and work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the presence of Jesus Christ, for our present world. The Holy Spirit will accomplish the work that God began before time. But that is lofty thinking.
While God uses our weak vessels to proclaim His love, we can often get in his way because we assume that we have to be "moral and upstanding" in order to proclaim Christ. We rob ourselves of our weakness, and we therefore rob ourselves of our identity. This grieves the spirit of God. I know this from experience. When I try to be something that I am not, it always fails. We rob God of His grace, and His sovereignty, when we try to shelter others from our problems, our mistakes, our weakness.
As Paul was writing to the Corinthians, he had three things in mind. One, he had His God in mind. Two, he had the Corinthian people in mind. Third, he had himself in mind. Paul knew that God was a God that spoke through human weakness. Paul knew that the story of God, included, and surrounded, a God that emptied Himself out, in weakness. Paul, like no other, understood weakness. Paul had killed. Paul had ordered to kill. And Paul was perhaps a man that suffered from mental illness, or bad eye site. In whatever way you can try to figure it out, Paul was a man acquainted with weakness. As he was converted, on the road to Damascus, he was given a quick experience of weakness. He says to us that he spent three days walking around blind.
Three things happen to Paul that bespeak his entire life, a life of weakness. All of these occurences are reliably told by Luke, the physician, who wrote down his words in the book of Acts. Chapter 9 is the location of Paul's conversion.
- Verse 4 suggests that he "fell to the ground."
- Verse 9 suggests that "when he opened his eyes, he could see nothing."
- Verse 9 suggests two other curious things; he was lead by the hand into Damascus, and, he did not eat anything or drink for three days.
I may be wrong, but I think AA's first spiritual truth is "We must acknowledge our need for help." AA was founded by a Catholic. I may be wrong, but I bet you the founder of AA got his ideas from the coversion of Saul into Paul. Change began when Saul asked God "What do you want me to do?"
It was Ananias that was "a man that was devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there." It was Ananias that Saul was to come into contact with, and it was Ananias that God used to help heal Saul. Pivotal to this passage is a clear remembrance of Paul's weakness. The weakness, in body, was overcome by the help of Ananias, and, ultimately, helped by the community of the faithful. When we experience weakness, we must not be afraid. "Do not fear, for I am with you." Jesus wants us to live inside our weakness, and even to embrace our weakness, as a way to more openly depend on Him. Ultimately, God wants our weakness to drive us to our knees as it did Saul. "Lord, what shall I Do?"
And so we have it. The beginning of the Christian church was leveled on the knees of Saul, a man in need of bodily healing of his weakness. How much more do we need this healing today? How much more do we need to hear from the Lord in our time? Today we need the bodily healing of our very real weaknesses. These weaknesses are not contrived, they are not false, they are not dreamed. They are real. And before the Christian church was leveled by Paul, it was leveled on the cross. And we are embraced and delighted upon, in these weaknesses, by the God whose son died on the cross. Our weakness must no scare us, but rather, they must drive us in one direction. And that direction is into the love of the one. This one, this Jesus, hung in weakness on the cross. This one, this Jesus, inspired the hymn that we find in Phillipians 2. Jesus not only inspired these words, he was the complete representation of God, in human form, of these words. Jesus was God, and Jesus was human. What?
Who being in the very nature God, He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.
But he made himself nothing, and emptied himself.
He became obedient to death, even death on a cross.
My own weakness drove me to the foot of the cross. In the cross I have been healed, because in the cross there is Jesus, and in Jesus there is His Father, and in this trinity, there is life. This is the only life that will live forever. This is why it is called, in scripture, "Eternal life."
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