VIDEO Our Weakness, His Strength

“My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”… For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

 

A boy began lessons with an old Japanese judo master. The boy was only ten years old and had lost his left arm in a car accident. He was doing well, so he couldn’t understand why, after three months of training, the master had taught him only one move. “This is the only move you know, but this is the only move you’ll ever need to know,” the sensei replied.

Several months later, the sensei took the boy to his first tournament. He won all three matches. Still amazed by his success, the boy was now in the finals. He asked the judo master why he had won.

“You won for two reasons,” the sensei answered. “First, you’ve almost mastered one of the most difficult throws in all of judo. And second, the only known defense for that move is for your opponent to grab your left arm.” The boy’s biggest weakness had become his biggest strength.

We don’t often view our weaknesses in the same way, but we should—just like Paul prayed fervently for God to remove some affliction unknown to us, what he called a “thorn in the flesh.” Refusing to remove it, God said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

Live…daily, a life of dependence on the grace of God. Charles Spurgeon

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God’s Purpose in Our Pain (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

A Solitary Voice

As surely as the Lord lives, I can tell him only what my God says. 2 Chronicles 18:13

After the Paris Peace Conference that concluded World War I, French Marshall Ferdinand Foch bitterly observed, “This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years.” Foch’s view contradicted the popular opinion that the horrifying conflict would be the “war to end all wars.” Twenty years and two months later, World War II erupted. Foch was right.

Long ago, Micaiah, the lone true prophet of God present at the time, consistently prophesied dire military results for Israel (2 Chronicles 18:7). In contrast, four hundred of King Ahab’s false prophets foretold victory: “Look, the other prophets without exception are predicting success for the king,” a court official told Micaiah. “Let your word agree with theirs, and speak favorably” (v. 12).

Micaiah responded, “I can tell him only what my God says” (v. 13). He prophesied how Israel would be “scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd” (v. 16). Micaiah was right. The Arameans killed Ahab and his army fled (vv. 33-34; 1 Kings 22:35-36).

Like Micaiah, we who follow Jesus share a message that contradicts popular opinion. Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Many don’t like that message because it seems harshly narrow. Too exclusive, people say. Yet Christ brings a comforting message that’s inclusive. He welcomes everyone who turns to Him. 

By:  Tim Gustafson

Reflect & Pray

When the Spirit leads you to say or do something, how will you do so in love? When have your own assumptions needed to be challenged by God?

Father, please give me the wisdom to discern Your truth. 

God Hovers Over Us

The security and love we need can always be found in our heavenly Father’s presence Isaiah 31:1-5

Can you recall a time when you witnessed a parent protecting a child from danger? That fierce and tender strength is wondrous to behold. Just as a watchful mom and dad are quick to defend and comfort their kids, so too is our Father swift to shelter and tend His people. Throughout Scripture, we find multiple instances where God’s love for His children is likened to a bird hovering over its nest or a mother comforting her child.

Today’s passage is one of them. Through the prophet Isaiah, God describes a coming time when the nation of Israel will regret looking to any nation or ruler besides the Lord for protection. Yet despite their misplaced trust, God promises to defeat Israel’s enemies and hover over Jerusalem, shielding and rescuing her from destruction. Centuries later, Jesus articulated a similar longing to gather the children of Jerusalem “the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings” (Matthew 23:37).

God was not intimidated by the enemies that surrounded Israel, and He is in no way threatened by the forces, people, and problems that terrify us today. We can be confident that our God is intimately near to us in times of danger. Because of His strong and tender love, we have nothing to fear.

Murmurers and Complainers

“These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.” (Jude 1:16)

Jude’s book cites several incidents in the early history of Israel right after they were wonderfully delivered from slavery in Egypt. Within a very short time, they had come through the Red Sea, had bitter water made sweet, seen water come out of a rock, and been fed with “angels’ food” from heaven. Yet when the 12 spies came back from the land of Canaan that had been promised to them, there was a widespread revolt against God and against Moses’ leadership.

The 10 spies who “murmured” against God “died by the plague before the LORD” (Numbers 14:37). Some who had previously sided with the defeatist words of the spies tried to take matters into their own hands and “presumed to go up” to fight against the Canaanites and were killed or scattered (Numbers 14:44-45).

Much of the history of Israel is marked by various ways of turning away from God. Psalm 81 provides a good summary of how God sees this behavior: “I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me. So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels” (Psalm 81:10-12).

Jude uses a rather unusual word picture to describe those who use others for their personal advantage. They speak “great swelling words” to gain the association. The Greek word is huperogkos, which conveys something like “beyond weight” or “too heavy.” The words are coming from hearts that are lustful and attempting to manipulate others for their own benefit. It appears that those who “murmur” and “complain” will use “heavy” words to achieve their ends. HMM III

Success… But At What Price?

During World War II, a friend’s father held office in London, returning occasionally to the United States to visit his family

During one of his brief stays, his father noticed that he was playing sandlot baseball without a mitt. So he promptly went out and purchased one. The only problem was that the mitt was right handed and his son was a lefty.

You guessed it: A close bond did not exactly exist between this father and his eight year old son. Imagine: A father not knowing whether his son was right or left handed!

In the business world, this dad was respected and recognized as a “success.” At home however, he was an abysmal failure, having sacrificed his family for his career.

Last night my wife and I dined with a couple whose twenty-three year old daughter is being held by the authorities on felony charges.

During the course of the meal, the father (also a “successful” businessman) related how he had sacrificed his children during their formative years for his career. To compensate for his failings, he and his wife routinely indulged their offspring by catering to their slightest whimsical desires, while continually rescuing them from the consequences of any deviant behavior.

The results? Agonized parents whose daughter views them with great disdain, while facing the strong probability of spending several years in jail.

SUCCESS… BUT AT WHAT PRICE?

May I ask you some questions?

• Does your spouse feel you are spending adequate time with the children?
• Are you aware that “quality” time with your offspring rarely occurs without the requisite “quantity” time?
• Judging by the quality of your present emotional bond with your children, are you developing in them a healthy sense of self-worth, or do they feel by your emotional or physical absence that they are not worthy of your time?
• If you are blowing it with your kids, what is the core issue you are choosing to not deal with: Pride? Fear of failure? Greed? Or what?

“Discipline (Literally: Instruct, correct, reform and reprove) your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death… A foolish son brings grief to his father and bitterness to the one who bore him.“(Proverbs 19:18; 17:25)

“Set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God.”

Mark 7:1-23

John 7:1

It was a sign of stormy weather when these ill birds came together.

John 7:6-8

These were the ancestors of our modern Ritualists, who are fast bound with idle forms and vain ceremonials, and make a great matter of the cut of a garment, or the colour of a robe.

John 7:9

The keeping of human commands always leads to the neglect of the divine. Superstition strangles true religion.

John 7:10-13

If an ungrateful son did not care to give his parents what they asked, he had only to say that he had made an offering of it, and he was free from all obligation to succour his parents. This was a forcible example of the way in which tradition made void the law of God; but many such might have been quoted, for the Rabbis openly exalted their precepts above the law of Moses. In their Talmud we read, “The words of the scribes are more noble than the words of the law; for the words of the law are both hard and easy, but the words of the scribes are all easy to be understood.”

John 7:14, 15

Godliness does not consist in meats or drinks, in feasting or fasting. No food, unless it be the means of gluttony or drunkenness, has a defiling effect. Tradition makes much of externals, the gospel makes very little.

John 7:20-23

Thus did he set forth the true spiritual religion, wherein holy hearts are everything, and peculiar meats are nothing; obedient lives are acceptable, and rigid abstinences little worth. We do not need salt fish, but salt in ourselves; not unleavened cakes, but hearts free from malice and hypocrisy.

Not different food, nor different dress,

Compose the kingdom of our Lord;

But peace, and joy, and righteousness,

Faith, and obedience to his word.

Unclean by Comparison

And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. (Revelation 1:17)

In the Old Testament, whenever the living God revealed Himself in some way to humankind, terror and amazement were the reactions. People saw themselves as guilty and unclean by comparison!

In the book of Revelation, the Apostle John describes the overwhelming nature of his encounter with the Lord of glory. Although a believer and an apostle, John sank down in abject humility and fear when the risen, glorified Lord Jesus appeared before him on Patmos.

Our glorified Lord did not condemn John. He knew that John’s weakness was the reaction to revealed divine strength. He knew that John’s sense of unworthiness was the instant reaction to absolute holiness. Along with John, every redeemed human being needs the humility of spirit that can only be brought about by the manifest Presence of God.

Jesus at once reassured John, stooping to place a nail-pierced hand on the prostrate apostle, and saying: “Do not be afraid. I am the Living One. I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and hades.”