Grace to be Weak

2 Corinthians 12:9-10  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.  (10)  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.

Some passages in the Bible are very offensive to us and this is one of them.  We hate weakness, the inability to achieve your own goals, being unable to get something done or be something without the help of others.  Right now in America there is a new shift in the church away from consumerism and into hyper consumerism.  We not only get to choose to be healthy by having the right to purchase healthy and whole foods, but we have the right to be spiritually whole and healthy by choosing the best of what God has for us. (You may be reading this and not even know that most of the world has no choice in food, no choice in water, no choice even in a church to attend)  We are not waiting on God, listening to what He might say or lead us into.  We are to mature for that.  We know the mind of God and it has nothing to do with anything less than God’s best (my personal happiness and wholeness) for ME!

Maybe you can tell by my tone I am a little upset with people who are claiming to be like God.  To be people who have the best of everything, to be worthy of nothing bad happening to them unless of course God is going to repay them seven fold.  “Sacrifice” now means “postponed abundant gratification”.  No wonder so many in this generation are not marrying, for sharing life with another person and later children will surly work on our eternal “ME” happiness.

So right now I am thinking I should not post this.

But do we know what it is costing us to avoid weakness, insults, distress, difficulties, pain?  Can we see in almost everyone in the Bible how pain, suffering and weakness was the tool that matured and developed Godliness?  The wilderness was more than isolation, it was dependency on God, and inability to take care of yourself.  Paul in prison and in need for food.  Peter in need to John Mark.  Timothy in need of Paul.  Rod in need of  ______________.

If you read the Beatitudes and what to live them out, not just study them, you are going to go through some stuff.  To live it out takes you from the place where you are “willing to be” humble or “willing to” turn the other cheek.  Real life reaches up and smacks you, inflicts you with pain, has a loved family member reject you and allows you to, in real time and real space be be kind, patient, rejoicing and joyful.  The grace we need is what God supplies when we cannot do it.  We can go through more, we can suffer more, we can be more weak because God is ready to give us more grace.  His grace does not avoid pain and suffering, it takes us through it. 

I have so little real power of God in me because I avoid most everything through which real power comes.  I want an anointing, God sends a trouble.  I want a miracle, God sends suffering.  I want a ministry, God sends some for me to help with no reward for self.  So if this is the kind of God is, would you love Him, be devoted to Him, give up your volition for Him?  I would.

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.  God is the Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Kings, Ruler of the Nations, Light of the World.  God is in heaven on the throne as a lamb slain.  Real power transcends all earthly notions.  We can’t reverse engineer God.  Do you want to be great in the Kingdom of God?  Do you teach on serving others or do you serve them?  Do you instruct others on how to think more highly of others than you do yourself or do you do it?

What am I content with?  What am I well content with?  Is it weakness, insults, troubles and hard times?  I must admit that most of the time I want the kind of God who empowers me not to have any troubles.  I do not spend much time rejoining in the God who has got me through sickness, disease, lack and despair.  Instead of being happy He got me through I bemoan that fact that I had to go through it.  Shouldn't the love of God be a cause to avoid pain and suffering. 

I invite you to read the following text and not put an American spin on it.  Read it as simply as possible and allow it to say what it means and to be re-engineered to fit into your theology.  And maybe you can’t do that, maybe you don’t have the grace for it.  But maybe you do!

Hebrews 12:1-17 

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  (2)  fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  (3)  For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.  (4)  You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;  (5)  and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, "MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM;  (6)  FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES."  (7)  It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?  (8)  But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.  (9)  Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?  (10)  For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.  (11)  All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.  (12)  Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble,  (13)  and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.  (14)  Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.  (15)  See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;  (16)  that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.  (17)  For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.