Forget everything else you have heard…God’s grace is enough and sufficient for you.
There has been a big debate as to what thorn could have been in Paul’s flesh to keep him from getting too proud. – 2 Corinthians 12:7-10.
Don’t be fooled, every victor you see is a victim in some other area you have no idea of. Don’t let rich people fool you, in some areas of their lives, they are lacking. Don’t let poor folks fool you either, they are rich in ways that, the rich with all their money can’t buy. Life is fair and it is a balance. Your ideas will balance your realities. Your strengths will balance your weaknesses. Your triumphs will balance your tragedies. Everybody has them. No one escapes.
Some people look at you and fantasize, wishing they were in your “shoes”, having what you have. I once told someone to be careful what you ask for because you have no idea the inner pain and struggle, I go through as a result of my anointing. People see the outer display of your gifts, but they have no idea of the inner struggle that comes along with being who you are. They see you and your wife smiling out here, but they have no idea what is going on behind closed doors. They see you driving that flashy car, but they have no idea what you go through to keep it on the road. They envy your job, but they have no idea what you go through to maintain the job. So, what did I say the thorn in Paul’s flesh was? Sincerely I have no idea.
However, I think Paul didn’t mention any specifics so that you and I can fill in the blanks with that thorn, that’s in your flesh and making your life uncomfortable. You might have prayed about it, or fasted about it, it may have been there since the eighties. We all have something different when it comes to thorns in the flesh. Something that makes you humble, makes you pray and something that balances you, trust me, when I tell you, that thorn may not be going away anytime soon،, however, remember always that God’s grace is sufficient for you, don’t give up, keep moving with the thorn, for when you are weak, Christ will make you strong.
Do not allow the background of a person, or your familiarity with a person, to prevent you from receiving help, if the person can help you and wants to receive it.
The Nazarenes placed Jesus, back into the box of their previous knowledge of him: he is the carpenter. With this, they can be comfortable. It was impossible for them that one of them, one so familiar, could be a prophet sent from God to instruct them. Small-town prejudice and narrow-mindedness blinker perception of the reality that is there before them. As a result, Jesus could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them – Mark 6:1-6.
The episode shows that the greatest enemy to your progress in life and subsequently your faith can simply be “familiarity”: a refusal to believe that God’s presence and God’s power could come to you in so familiar a form as the person next door. The better we know people the more likely we are to find fault with them and then dislike them. We take them for granted and underestimate their capacity to grow, develop, change, and become surprisingly more wonderful and gifted than we ever expected they could be.
These episodes challenge the human tendency to label and limit people; they invite believers to begin to look at God, the world, and one another with more open eyes and more receptive hearts.
Beethoven, for example, had a rather awkward playing style and preferred to work on his compositions rather than play the classical artists of his day. Disapproving of his technique, his teacher called him hopeless as a composer. Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four and could not read until age nine. He was described by his schoolmaster as mentally slow, unsociable and adrift in his foolish dreams. Thomas Edison’s teachers advised his parents to keep him home from school, stating that he was
too stupid to learn anything. Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor who complained that he was lacking in creative ideas
Ezekiel suffered the same fate, and so did Jesus, his folk rejected him, hence the famous saying
A prophet is not respected in his neighborhood.
All these people lived to contradict their naysayers and so excelled in their respective fields as to become a surprise to those who thought they knew them. These episodes challenge the human tendency to label and limit people; they invite believers to begin to look at God, the world, and one another with more open eyes and more receptive hearts.
Speak out, evil thrives when good men and women say and do nothing.
God speaks to us today as he spoke to Ezekiel:
Son of man, I am sending you to the rebels who have turned against me. – Ezekiel 2:2-5
There is much rebellion in our time against God, against nature, against the church, and the fabrics of our moral, social, and cultural principles. We must be that voice that cries against injustice, oppression, immorality, corruption, and ungodliness.
However, we do not want any discomfort and because we want everyone to like us and say only good things about us when things are going wrong under our watch and nose, we are afraid to speak out. Our attitude is that of: “I do not want to hurt anybody. I do not want to lose him or her.” Unfortunately, the truth is that if you do not correct or help him or her today, or tomorrow you will lose him or her forever.
