By nature, all the living creatures in this world are given with a lot of capabilities, especially when we consider humans. Most of them depend on their own positive qualities and ignoring the weak areas for more prosperity and gaining the wealth. From a human perspective, there won’t be anything to be happy about our own weakness as it always places barriers in our journey. In Bible, St. Paul loudly proclaims he is happy about his weakness and it came as a realization in his life after a lot of struggle to nullify one of his weaknesses.
2 Corinthians 12: 7 – 10, Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from 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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, 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.
This gospel communicates a lot into our spiritual journey even after receiving Christ as our God and saviour into our life. There can be thorns in our flesh and which can give discomfort in our spiritual life. But, this should not separate us from Christ and his grace! Even if we are imperfect the perfect one calls us to be perfect with his grace. If we are boasting about our perfect and strong areas the grace of Lord won’t overflow into our life. The grace of the Lord comes into our life to make us strong even if we are weak, to make us perfect even if we are imperfect. St. Paul identified his weak area in the flesh which does not go away from him even after repeated prayers to get away from them. In the world, weakness is always considered to be a limitation which prevents what we plan to do and mostly this causes many people to be lazy looking at their own shortcomings. Therefore, all of us wish to eradicate or weakness somehow but what we see is some of our limitations are allowed by Lord even if we don’t like them. Lord allows this to have a continuous spiritual partnership with him to grow in our dependence. The moment we think we are self-sufficient in all our needs we forget to call Lord and the results of actions and plans will not be great. The perfect Lord does in an imperfect person‘s life is wonderful than a person who is considered to be ‘perfect’ does with all his power. For a worldly person, weakness is a gateway for frequent sin and for a spiritual person this is a path for continuous prayer and a way to be connected with Lord always.
So, it is important to know our hidden weak areas which may even open to temptations and sin if we are not vigilant .Give all our weaknesses to the hand of Lord and then the grace of Lord will fill in them and we will become strong in our shortcomings. This relationship will keep us close to Lord and attached with him ever. Even if we fly high our Lord will control us holding in our weakness, hardship and insults. Anyone who does not invite Lord’s grace into their weakness will fall into temptations and sinful life very easily.
As an example, think of a person who previously had limitations like difficulties to forgive, high temper, the urge to gossiping, and controlling the sexual desires etc. But now he is victorious over many weaknesses and is struggling to control the sexual desire alone. If he is not careful, this weakness alone causes him to do frequent sins in his flesh and will put him into hell fire at the time of judgment. But on the other side, if he is aware of this weakness then he can give it to the mercy of Lord. Then, Lord will take care of him always and then the same weakness will attach him with Lord and thereby he will receive more blessing and protection in this area. He will become strong because Lord is fighting for him and he is not alone.
As Paul is happy and praising God for his weakness every child of God should call Lord into our midst in all areas of our life, irrespective of whether we are weak or strong. Our weak areas are no longer weak as Lord is fighting for us and our strong areas are no longer strong if we are not calling Lord into that. Lord wants to do wonders in our life and he will multiply our five pieces of bread of weakness into five thousand blessings. The purpose of grace is to overcome our weakness and difficulties with heavenly support. It fills all our emptiness created by weakness. The more we identify and accept our shortfalls the more will be will be filled with divine grace. We don’t know how to pray but spirit helps us. We are weak in following the commands, but lord alone saved us from this difficulty by making all of us the beneficiary of his righteousness. In summary, God alone works and we just need to receive the grace and blessings.
Romans 6: 1 -2, what then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? By no means! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer? Praising God in our weakness does not mean it is a license to continue in sin, rather it is an opportunity to fight against temptation and get away from sin with power from God and his grace. Weaknesses become a reason for few to fall into sin while others into life and grace by calling the righteousness of crucified God. It is not the demerit of weakness causes the failure rather the laziness and lack of grace in weakness cause the hell fire. Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me. The power of living Lord who is dwelling in our soul as holy spirit making us enabled to do the impossible things which we never thought. We can look into our hearts and identify the unconquered areas and then give to feet of resurrected Lord, who is victorious over sin and death will fight for us with his army.
We are called to be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect. Why is lord asking us to be perfect even after knowing we are weak in many ways? Is it possible for a human to be perfect with his weakness and thorn in his flesh? The revelation which came from St. Paul is our answer and hope. It says Christ’s power rest on me when I am weak. If we think we are strong in any weak areas it is the grace of Christ making us actually strong and we need to be in prayer to continue in the Grace. 1 Corinthians 10:12 -13, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. The way of God to endure and overcome the temptation is his Grace alone and is free for anyone who receives Christ as his saviour.
If we think that there is an imperfection in our lives, we need to open the doors of our lives to the one who does perfect things, but remember he needs our consent. We can stop murmuring thinking about our limitation and place our God given talents in practice because the blessing of Lord multiplies only in action with him. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).We can stop being under inferiority complex and mental agonies as we are victorious with Jesus who even conquered death which no one else could. It is not human sympathy which makes us motivated and fruitful but the ‘blind’ faith in Jesus makes us productive in our shortfalls. Hebrews 4:16 -Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. No matter we are weak or strong, definitely, we need the mercy and grace in all our needs and it comes from the righteous right hand of ever living Lord, Jesus Christ. We can build up our faith in order to have the full confidence to approach him closely and this faith comes hearing and meditating his words from the scripture.
Let us surrender our life to the feet of our Lord and can thirst for his grace to follow into our life more abundantly and none of the temptations, weakness, barriers, hardships or insults can separate us from his mercy. Let our weakness be an opportunity to attach us more into his merciful heart and he alone controls our whole life and he alone lives in our body. All the glory to him for ever and ever!
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