When I Am Weak… He Is Strong
“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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” - 2 Corinthians 12:9
Yesterday, we discussed the story of Achilles and his weakness: his heel. It is a phrase we now use to refer to someone’s weakness despite their overwhelming strength. Everyone has a weakness, even Abraham. Abraham, the father of faith, and the patriarch of Israel was a man who grew immeasurably over time and cultivated many talents and abilities but also had weaknesses.
He was successful. He was wealthy. And he had a clear relationship with God. From Genesis 12 to 20, so much changed in Abraham’s life. His name changed. He drew closer to God. He developed a prayer life and went through some challenges. He dealt with deception and destruction and was delivered from enemies without and within his camp.
However, in Genesis 20, Abraham lied to the king of Egypt about his relationship to his wife, saying she was his sister out of fear. That lie threatened not only their lives and that of their family, but according to verse 3 could have unleashed the divine wrath of God. And yet, here Abraham was, a man of faith, and a man with a clear relationship with God, reverting to the same habits and flaws that he was doing 25 years earlier.
Apparently, this propensity to lie about his marriage to Sarah was his Achilles heel. Sometimes, we have an Achilles heel, a weakness, that we think has been eliminated, but it presents itself in a future situation.
Sometimes God introduces certain situations to expose our sin so that we can work on eliminating it. It also causes us to rely on God and not on our own strength. In 2
Corinthians 9:12, Paul says, “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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
Through your weakness, God’s power can be magnified.
Yesterday, we discussed the story of Achilles and his weakness: his heel. It is a phrase we now use to refer to someone’s weakness despite their overwhelming strength. Everyone has a weakness, even Abraham. Abraham, the father of faith, and the patriarch of Israel was a man who grew immeasurably over time and cultivated many talents and abilities but also had weaknesses.
He was successful. He was wealthy. And he had a clear relationship with God. From Genesis 12 to 20, so much changed in Abraham’s life. His name changed. He drew closer to God. He developed a prayer life and went through some challenges. He dealt with deception and destruction and was delivered from enemies without and within his camp.
However, in Genesis 20, Abraham lied to the king of Egypt about his relationship to his wife, saying she was his sister out of fear. That lie threatened not only their lives and that of their family, but according to verse 3 could have unleashed the divine wrath of God. And yet, here Abraham was, a man of faith, and a man with a clear relationship with God, reverting to the same habits and flaws that he was doing 25 years earlier.
Apparently, this propensity to lie about his marriage to Sarah was his Achilles heel. Sometimes, we have an Achilles heel, a weakness, that we think has been eliminated, but it presents itself in a future situation.
Sometimes God introduces certain situations to expose our sin so that we can work on eliminating it. It also causes us to rely on God and not on our own strength. In 2
Corinthians 9:12, Paul says, “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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
Through your weakness, God’s power can be magnified.
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