To keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.—2 Corinthians 12:7
Paul’s thorn in the flesh that he mentioned in 2 Corinthians 12 could have been some kind of disability, something he’d been born with. More likely, it was something he incurred later in life as a result of his many beatings, shipwrecks, or the time he was stoned and left for dead.
Whatever it was, it bothered him greatly—to the point that he asked the Lord on three separate occasions to take it away. Each time, however, the Lord said no, telling Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you” (verse 9). Effectively Jesus was saying, “Paul, I’m not giving you healing this time. I’m giving you Me. I’m giving you My presence, and that is My answer to you.”
Sometimes when we have physical afflictions, the healing will come. By all means pray for it, and pray more than once. Ask the Lord to touch you, heal you, restore you. But there are times in our lives too when He will say, “My grace is sufficient.” And instead of a healing, He personally will be there for you in a unique and sufficient way.
God is with you regardless of what hardship, heartache, or storm you may be enduring right now. You are not alone.
I remember teaching my granddaughter Stella some Bible verses when she was only twoand-a-half. One was: “Jesus said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’ ” Stella did pretty good with it, even though she said “porsake” instead of “forsake.” I don’t think she even understands what it means yet. But that’s okay; she is hearing God’s Word and getting it into her little heart.
What a truth to hang on to! What a handhold in any storm! He will never leave or forsake you . . . even when tragedy hits . . . even when your company downsizes, and you get the dreaded pink slip . . . even when the doctor calls and says, “The test results are back, and I need you to come to my office immediately” . . . even when the phone rings and someone says, “There’s been an accident.”
You aren’t alone. The Lord is standing next to you. He cares. He will be there.
Today’s devotional is an excerpt from Every Day with Jesus by Greg Laurie, 2013
Tag Archives: thorn in the flesh
Greg Laurie – Keep Praying!
“And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” —Luke 11:9–10
Part of the problem with our prayers is that we give up too soon. We simply assume that it must not be God’s will: “I prayed four times for an awakening to come to America, and it didn’t happen, so it must not be God’s will.”
The early church prayed—and then kept on praying. They continued to bring their need before the Lord. This is one reason their prayer for Peter’s release from prison was answered.
But what about those times when our prayers are not answered? Sometimes we will pray for something and God won’t give us what we want. We will say, “God didn’t answer my prayer.” Actually, He did. He said no. And no is an answer.
Sometimes God says no. Sometimes God says slow. Sometimes God says go. And sometimes God says grow.
The apostle Paul had what he described as a “thorn in the flesh,” some kind of a physical infirmity. He prayed three times for God to take it away. But essentially God’s answer to Paul was grow. He was saying, “I’m leaving it in your life because it will cause you to grow spiritually.”
Then there was Moses, who wanted to deliver the Israelites out of the bondage of Egypt. Let’s just say he was a little early. He took matters into his own hands and made a mess of things. God said to him, in effect, slow. He sent him out to the wilderness to whip him into shape. God made him into the man He wanted him to be.
But sometimes God says go. You will pray about it, and God says yes, let’s go now. You pray, and it’s done. Sometimes that happens.
So keep praying. Keep seeking. Keep asking. That is what the Bible tells us to do.
Charles Stanley – Promises to Heal
James 5:13-18
Have you ever wondered why we see far fewer miracles today than what the Bible reports? God has not changed, nor has His power. And our needs are no fewer than those of that day. Why, then, do we witness less of His powerful healing in modern society?
James 4:2-3 lists two reasons: “You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.”
God’s power may also be hindered by a lack of faith. In fact, because the people in Jesus’ own hometown rejected Him, He did few miracles there (Matt. 13:57-58).
There’s another reason, and it may be the most difficult to comprehend and accept: Sometimes the Lord’s perfect and loving will is not for our health to be restored immediately—or ever. He might have a lesson for us to learn that requires suffering so we can listen and understand. Because our Father knows the big picture that we are unable to see, He may allow the difficulty to remain.
Paul accepted this. He asked God three times to remove what he called his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7). But he finally understood that it would continue and the Lord’s power would be made perfect through his weakness.
God desires that you turn to Him as Lord and Healer. Pray with faith in Jesus’ name, bringing your requests but also surrendering to His will. Trust that He can do anything—and that what He does will be in your best interest and for His glory. Our heavenly Father still does miracles today.
Greg Laurie – Staying Usable
Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me—2 Corinthians 12: 9
Do you think having a vision of heaven might make you a little arrogant? Imagine sitting around with a group of people who were talking about where they went for vacation. We went to Hawaii. . . . We went to Tahiti. . . . We went to Italy. . . .
The apostle Paul could say, “I went to heaven.”
“No, no! Where did you go, Paul? Really.”
“Heaven—I went to heaven.”
“Yeah? What was it like?”
“I can’t really explain it. But it was better than where you went.”
So that Paul would not be filled with pride, God allowed adversity into his life to keep him humble and usable. Writing about this experience, Paul said,
Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:8–10)
God may allow hardship in the life of a Christian. In Paul’s case, it was “a thorn in the flesh” (see 2 Corinthians 12:7). We don’t know what this thorn in the flesh was, exactly. Whatever it was, Paul asked the Lord to take it away three times, and three times He said, “My grace is all you need.” God allowed this hardship in Paul’s life to keep him usable in His kingdom. And he was very usable.
A Means for Growth – Greg Laurie
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow—James 1:2–3
When we experience suffering in our lives, we naturally want the pain to go away. But sometimes God can do things through our pain that cannot be accomplished in any other way. Alan Redpath said, “When God wants to do an impossible task, he takes an impossible individual and crushes him.”
James wrote, “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing” (James 1:2–4).
Sometimes the Lord will turn a disability into an ability. Sometimes He will take a weakness and turn it into a strength.
If you are trying to get stronger physically, you need to use your muscles. When you work out, you are essentially breaking your muscles down to build them back up again.
In the same way, God may allow hardship into our lives to make us stronger in our faith.
Here is what the apostle Paul said when he asked God to take away his thorn in the flesh, but God said no: “Each time He said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10)
We always want things to go reasonably well. We don’t want to suffer. We don’t want hardship. But that hardship may be the best thing for us.
Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening
Morning “Therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you.” / Isaiah
30:18
God often delays in answering prayer. We have several instances of this in
sacred Scripture. Jacob did not get the blessing from the angel until near the
dawn of day–he had to wrestle all night for it. The poor woman of
Syrophoenicia was answered not a word for a long while. Paul besought the Lord
thrice that “the thorn in the flesh” might be taken from him, and he received
no assurance that it should be taken away, but instead thereof a promise that
God’s grace should be sufficient for him. If thou hast been knocking at the
gate of mercy, and hast received no answer, shall I tell thee why the mighty
Maker hath not opened the door and let thee in? Our Father has reasons
peculiar to himself for thus keeping us waiting. Sometimes it is to show his
power and his sovereignty, that men may know that Jehovah has a right to give
or to withhold. More frequently the delay is for our profit. Thou art perhaps
kept waiting in order that thy desires may be more fervent. God knows that
delay will quicken and increase desire, and that if he keeps thee waiting thou
wilt see thy necessity more clearly, and wilt seek more earnestly; and that
thou wilt prize the mercy all the more for its long tarrying. There may also
be something wrong in thee which has need to be removed, before the joy of the
Lord is given. Perhaps thy views of the Gospel plan are confused, or thou
mayest be placing some little reliance on thyself, instead of trusting simply
and entirely to the Lord Jesus. Or, God makes thee tarry awhile that he may
the more fully display the riches of his grace to thee at last. Thy prayers
are all filed in heaven, and if not immediately answered they are certainly
not forgotten, but in a little while shall be fulfilled to thy delight and
satisfaction. Let not despair make thee silent, but continue instant in
earnest supplication.
Evening “My people shall dwell in quiet resting places.” / Isaiah 32:18
Peace and rest belong not to the unregenerate, they are the peculiar
possession of the Lord’s people, and of them only. The God of Peace gives
perfect peace to those whose hearts are stayed upon him. When man was
unfallen, his God gave him the flowery bowers of Eden as his quiet resting
places; alas! how soon sin blighted the fair abode of innocence. In the day of
universal wrath when the flood swept away a guilty race, the chosen family
were quietly secured in the resting-place of the ark, which floated them from
the old condemned world into the new earth of the rainbow and the covenant,
herein typifying Jesus, the ark of our salvation. Israel rested safely beneath
the blood-besprinkled habitations of Egypt when the destroying angel smote the
first-born; and in the wilderness the shadow of the pillar of cloud, and the
flowing rock, gave the weary pilgrims sweet repose. At this hour we rest in
the promises of our faithful God, knowing that his words are full of truth and
power; we rest in the doctrines of his word, which are consolation itself; we
rest in the covenant of his grace, which is a haven of delight. More highly
favoured are we than David in Adullam, or Jonah beneath his gourd, for none
can invade or destroy our shelter. The person of Jesus is the quiet
resting-place of his people, and when we draw near to him in the breaking of
the bread, in the hearing of the word, the searching of the Scriptures,
prayer, or praise, we find any form of approach to him to be the return of
peace to our spirits.
“I hear the words of love, I gaze upon the blood,
I see the mighty sacrifice, and I have peace with God.
‘Tis everlasting peace, sure as Jehovah’s name,
‘Tis stable as his steadfast throne, for evermore the same:
The clouds may go and come, and storms may sweep my sky,
This blood-sealed friendship changes not, the cross is ever nigh.”
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