Aug 01 2023 1 mins 1
Transcript:
Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.
Allow me to ask you a question. Do you consider yourself a spiritually strong person or a spiritually weak person? I find that for most of us there is a deep longing to be a spiritually strong person. We don’t like the feeling of weakness and neediness. We even surmise that being spiritually weak or needy is somehow problematic or wrong, as if we are letting God down or disappointing Him in some way. But maybe there is something wrong with our push for spiritual power and avoidance of any sense of spiritual weakness.
To be honest, I know that feeling of spiritual weakness all too well, and in response to it I have found it helpful to remember the utter upside-down nature of Christ’s kingdom—that in my weakness I am strong. As Paul puts it, God’s grace is sufficient in my weakness, because He promises that His power is perfected in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). As Jesus put it, it is the “poor in spirit” who are blessed and receive the kingdom.
My friends, this message is so counter-intuitive and therefore so hard to grasp! It is for this reason that I have become increasingly thankful that God reminds us that the critical piece is not that we “grasp” God’s grace, but that it grasps us—not that we hold on to Jesus (though we should…and ultimately will) but that He has promised to hold on to us despite the weakness of our grasp on Him (John 10:27-30).
Dear Christian Friend, we are in the good hands of our Heavenly Father.
And that’s something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.
“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
~2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (ESV)
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
~John 10:27-29 (ESV)
