Christ’s Strength in our Weakness

2 Cor 12:7b-10

In the Abilities Church we like to quote the last line of this text, “when I am weak then I am strong”.  After all, the core message of the Abilities church is that those with disabilities have something vital to contribute to the Church.    This is an important message and something I affirm, but we need to understand the context and where our strength comes from.

1. Paul’s Thorn

Paul talks about his “thorn in the flesh”.  Now we are unsure what he means by this but many Bible Scholars believe that Paul had some form of disability - and he wrote half the New Testament.  I am not going to give my own view on this because I think we miss the point when we do that - the important point was that this was something that Paul received in order to make him humble.  

2. “My power works best in your weakness”

Another translation of the Bible puts it this way, “My Strength is made perfect in your weakness.”  God here is saying that his strength is displayed in our weak conditions.  So we learn here that it is not our strength that shows in our weakness - but rather God’s strength.  It is a common human tendency that we rely on what we can do and try and show how strong we are.  When you have a disability this can be especially clear because we are trying to show the world that we are capable of things.  But the thing I want to make clear in this message is we need to fall back onto God’s strength.   *possible live example* There is a trust exercise that is done where one person is standing in front of another.  The person behind is there to catch the other.  The person in front is to fold their arms and to let him or herself fall back and trust that the one behind will catch them.   That is what our relationship with Christ is to be like - We trust that he will catch us when we fall back into him.

Therefore the key thing we need to learn - and I need to learn it as much as anyone here - is to rely on God’s strength when there are things we cannot do and trust him to see us through the difficult times.