Day 29

“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” — 2 Corinthians 12:9

While there are people who believe they lack a reason for living, there are others who feel they have ample reason, but eventually discover they haven’t resources equal to their reason. They become frustrated, exhausted and burned out. Some try to fire their engines with drugs, alcohol or other artificial stimuli, which inevitably lead to addictions that destroy rather than refuel life. Empty and without resources, where do we go?

The Apostle Paul, fully aware of his weaknesses, labels himself ‘the chief of sinners’, ‘the least of the apostles’. Take Christ out of his life and he sees himself in the gutter. In Philippians 1:20, he writes that he hopes he will in no way be ashamed but have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in his body, whether by life or by death. Like Paul, most of us are aware of our lack of courage, yet we try to exhibit strength, boldness, confidence, while we camouflage doubt, fear and weakness. But it is in our weaknesses that God exhibits His strength and in our poverty of spirit He reveals His riches. To magnify Christ was Paul’s reason for living and he depended upon the resources that come from the life of Christ within him.

To the extent to which Christ was magnified in Paul was likely the degree to which Paul did what he knew he could not do, in a strength that was not his own. Who he became, was someone he knew he wasn’t in himself! The only valid explanation for Paul’s life and ministry was the presence of Christ within him. On the contrary, the extent to which we remain self-sufficient is the extent of which we limit and inhibit what Christ would do in us and through us.

A sense of human all-togetherness leaves us in spiritual poverty, but weakness and vulnerability opens us up to spiritual resources and riches. God’s ambition for us is that Christ be magnified in us and when we share that ambition, Christ becomes our resource for all that we need. In Christ, Paul experienced strength out of weakness, and riches out of poverty. That is why he writes, “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” (2 Corinthians 12:10). To allow the Sovereign Lord of the universe to work through our weaknesses is tremendously liberating. That is where Christ shows Himself strong, and where His life is magnified in us and through us as God intended.

Prayer: Dear Lord, thank you for being in control of my life. May I always remain focused on you, and in my weaknesses I depend on you. I am grateful for every opportunity to display your strength in me.

To reflect upon: Our biggest area of need is not where we know ourselves to be weak, but where we think ourselves to be strong. Do I need to bring both to the Lord in humility, trusting Him to show Himself strong in me?