Anyone out there bummed about weaknesses, insults, distresses, difficulties\u2026even persecution? Well, it just hit me! That means YOU are in a premier position for the power of God. How on earth??<\/p>\n
The Lord reminded me that Paul the Apostle of old had TONS of weaknesses and difficulties, and he didn\u2019t like any of them! He asked the Lord THREE times to lift some of this mess from him, and God responded, \u201cMy GRACE is sufficient for you, for POWER is PERFECTED in WEAKNESS\u201d (2 Cor. 12:9a).<\/p>\n
Then Paul wrote, \u201cMost gladly, therefore, I will rather BOAST ABOUT MY WEAKNESSES so that the POWER OF CHRIST MAY DWELL IN ME\u201d (2 Cor. 12:9b).<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the scoop, then\u2014to TRULY be able to make your boast in Christ, you HAVE experienced, ARE experiencing, and WILL experience various weaknesses, difficulties, insults, distresses\u2026even persecution\u2026in your determination to pursue, love, and obey Jesus fully\u2014both publicly AND privately.<\/p>\n
As you are facing various difficulties, you simply do what Paul did\u2014you pull up into the grace of God, allow HIM to fight your battles, and BOAST in your weaknesses [but not in a self-pity sort of way\u2014He\u2019ll even help you with this].<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re like me, you\u2019ve tried again and again to conquer your weaknesses and difficulties with your own strength, know-how, and willpower. But Paul lets us in on a sacred secret\u2014holing up in the FAITHFUL GRACE OF GOD and TRUSTING HIS POWER to take over\u2014is SUFFICIENT. God wasn\u2019t lying when He said, \u201c\u2026power is perfected in weakness.\u201d<\/p>\n
He who has called you is Faithful, and He WILL bring it to pass (1 Thes. 5:24).<\/p>\n
To sum things up\u2014if you\u2014as a believer in Jesus\u2014have never been weak, then you really have NOTHING to boast about. It\u2019s OK to be weak, for then God Himself can work, and He will get the glory.<\/p>\n
In that, BOAST!<\/p>\n
Dorothy<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2024, Dorothy Frick<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anyone out there bummed about weaknesses, insults, distresses, difficulties\u2026even persecution? Well, it just hit me! That means YOU are in a premier position for the power of God. How on earth?? The Lord reminded me that Paul the Apostle of old had TONS of weaknesses and difficulties, and he didn\u2019t like any of them! He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-walk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8853"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8855,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853\/revisions\/8855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}