2 Corinthians 12:1-10 Grace Gives Me Strength

MAIN THOUGHT: Grace teaches me how to daily depend upon God.

COUNTER THOUGHT: When I try to live on just “spiritual experiences”, I can never live a “strong” Christian life. As good as these spiritual experiences with God are, they can never substitute for a daily dependence upon God.

The apostle Paul begins by describing one of his special spiritual experiences. He tells the church in Corinth that at one time, he received a vision from God. Paul says it was a good experience. Through this summit or mountaintop experience with God, he received lots of knowledge and was spiritually refreshed. Paul is eloquently describing how it is when I depend upon spiritual experiences as a source of power. Depending on spiritual experiences can make me become conceited, independent, and prideful.

MAN’S FORMULA FOR STRENGTH: BOASTING (12:1-6)

So spiritual experiences are good, but God wants us to depend on Him daily. So many times, however, we want the spiritual experience because it can “fill us up.” Spiritual experiences with God have its place in refreshing the soul But the danger of an occasional spiritual experience is the same danger that a drug addict gets from an occasional high. Instead of learning to live day-by-day on his own, the drug addict needs the high that comes from the drug to counter the effects of the low that he gets when he is off the drug.

In the same way, a Christian who depends only on spiritual experiences to sustain them through their spiritual walk with God will be like a “spiritual drug addict.”

I go from one experience to the next. The next spiritual high must be high enough to handle my most deeply worldly low experience.

Notice the number of times that “I” is used in the first six verses. These verses speak of man’s strength and ability. Notice that Paul thinks the spiritual experience is so powerful that Paul feels like he “needs” this experience to sustain him. (In reality, it is the power of Christ that will sustain him. But Paul talks about how he needs this spiritual experience.) This is how he says that most Christians think about spiritual experiences. But Paul distances himself from the spiritual experience. This is why he describes it in the third person. To Paul, depending on such experiences without hardships would seem to be so foreign, that he might as well be speaking about another person.

But a drug addict learns to overcome a drug addiction by going through a process of drug withdrawal. Eventually, he learns to cope and overcome the addiction so that he can live his life daily.

This process of withdrawal and struggle is described in 2 Corinthians 12:7. There is a spiritual battle between God and Satan. Paul is the “man caught in the middle.”

But like every person who has overcome an addiction knows, the daily fight is won through accountability.

This accountability is what Jesus promised to Paul. Paul received a thorn made by Satan but sent by God to keep Paul humble. What exactly was the thorn and how did Satan use it to tempt Paul? There are many theories about the thorn. It is clear that Satan sent a demon related to this thorn. So the thorn was something that caused Paul physical pain. The demon was sent to remind him of that pain. Exactly what kind of pain Paul had is unknown. Some speculate that because of the blindness that Paul received during his conversion, that he received physical pain from this experience. Perhaps Paul received an eye problem after this special vision from God.

See with what large letters I have written to you with my own hand!
(Galatians 6:11 NKJV)

The pain came, and Satan sent a demon to spiritually remind Paul of the pain. But the demon reminded Paul of the spiritual experience that Paul had. The demon probably was tempting Paul to tell people about this spiritual experience. So there is a physical pain. There is a spiritual pain. There is an emotional pain related to this spiritual experience. You can sense this emotion in the fact that Paul prayed three times for God to take away the thorn.

So Paul prays and Jesus answers. Jesus says that He wants Paul to stay humble so that God can use Paul better for God’s purposes.

God won’t use a spiritual experience, addicts. God uses people who have overcome difficulties by learning to depend on God daily.

So grace is the accountability that God uses to help us depend on Him.

GOD’S FORMULA FOR STRENGTH: HUMILITY

“God’s power works best in men when my tank is on empty.” God fills me up and gives me the power to live each day.

So God teaches us to depend on Him. God uses difficulties, hardships, insults, and persecutions. The purpose of the thorn, as with any weakness is for me to depend upon God to provide for my needs. God’s power works best when I am weak. Satan may use these hardships for his domain for evil, but God will turn and use it in His domain – grace – for God’s good. Many times, He uses weaknesses in our lives to teach us to be accountable to Him. But let me first share with you the differences in weaknesses that we may encounter.

Why do we suffer? Why do we get sick? Let me share with you briefly four different cases about what happens when you get sick.

DIFFERENT MEDICAL CASES OF WEAKNESSES THAT WE CAN ENCOUNTER

CASE #1 – STRONG-WEAK-DIE

Sometimes, our bodies get an illness. Our bodies don’t recover from the illness. Our bodies die. We don’t die. Our bodies die. If we have become friends with Jesus, we go to a place called Heaven – a place where there is no sickness. If we do not know Jesus, then we go to a place called Hell. This is why Jesus said:

Don’t worry about the person who can kill the body. Worry about the person who can kill the body and the soul.

What is most important about someone who is near death is whether they know Jesus. Why? Because Jesus is the only Person who has overcome death. Therefore, Jesus can show us how to overcome death. We go to a new place. Jesus said this in John 14:6 in response to the question: How can we know the way when we die?

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father but by (knowing and following) Me.

So what do you do about Case #1? You set in your heart now, while you are healthy, to follow Jesus. The Bible says that there will be a judgment. The difference will be about one thing: Did you have a personal relationship with Jesus? Did you follow Him? If you did, when you die, you overcome death. If you did not, when you die, you suffer after death in a place far away from God.

So we are strong, we get sick, and we die. Ultimately our choice determines our destiny after we die?

Have you made the choice? Do you know very clearly where you will go when you die?

CASE #2 – STRONG-WEAK-STRONG AGAIN (US)

The Bible shows that it is a normal thing to get sick. We get the flu. We rest and eat what our bodies need to fight and overcome the infection. It is a pattern of endurance.

We get sick, and then we get well again. We get weak, and by our wisdom (our knowledge of illnesses, disease, and cures), we become strong again. Of course, it is not entirely independent of God. We learned all of our knowledge ultimately from Him. But the way in which we become well and overcome the disease is through man-made means.

CASE #3 – STRONG-WEAK-STRONG AGAIN (GOD)

Sometimes, however, we can get sick, we learn to endure in our weakness. We ask God to help us and heal us, and He does. God knows that we can’t endure the illness or difficulty. So He heals. There are many examples of this case in the Bible. In the Old Testament, Hezekiah was near death with some illness. He begged God to heal him and God did just that. Many times in the New Testament, people asked Jesus for healing and Jesu

s healed. The apostles were instrumental in healing others. But they clearly assigned the work of healing to God.

In this case, God removes the medical burden we have to endure. We are weak, but by God’s supernatural help, we become strong again.

CASE #4 – STRONG-WEAK-STRENGTH IN WEAKNESS

We get sick, we can’t heal it ourselves, and God does not remove the illness. Why does God heal sometimes? Why does he let me heal myself sometimes? Why still in other cases, doe He NOT heal? Here in Paul’s case, Paul knew the reason. God gave Paul a special spiritual experience sometime in the past. But apparently, Paul was going to promote the experience, even though God said: “Don’t tell.” So Paul said: I know why I am suffering. I am suffering so that God can keep me humble.

So grace is the accountability that God uses to help me to depend upon Him. Many times, God will use weaknesses to teach us that His grace is there to help us see God and look to Him for our help and not just something or someone else.

Because God can’t use a “spiritual knowledge or spiritual experience” addict. God uses people who have overcome difficulties by learning to depend on God daily.

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