One Man's Voice

2 Corinthians 12:9 Each time he said, “My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me. NLT

It’s difficult to reconcile how Paul could use the words boast and weaknesses in the same sentence. We cover our weakness, try to repair it, not boast about it.  In all honesty, facing and dealing with our weakness can be a daily burden leaving us discouraged and depressed. What seems to be a molehill for others is a mountain in our lives.  Yet, God’s promise to us is that in spite of our weakness, and, as a matter of fact, during the times when we feel most helpless, we can turn to Him for help.  His power works at its best when our strength is at its least.

Charlotte Elliott struggled with this issue in her life.  She became bitter and angry about the circumstances in her life.  Charlotte was an invalid from her youth and deeply resented the circumstances of her handicap.  When she gave her life to God, she longed to be used by Him, yet she felt her health and physical condition prevented it. Alone one evening, she poured out her feelings to God and penned the words:

Just as I am, tho tossed about

With many a conflict, many a doubt

Fightings and fears within, without,

O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

 You may recognize this as the third stanza to a song that has been sung at many evangelistic meetings.  A song that epitomizes that we can all come to God the way we are.  This song has helped millions to make that step… that step towards the unconditional, outstretched arms of God.  Charlotte may not have seen the fruits of her work, yet God used her moment of seeming weakness and despair to change the lives of many. Indeed, in spite of Charlotte’s physical impairment, God used her pen to draw millions to Him.

 Don’t focus on your difficulties or weaknesses.  Focus on the God who is bigger than your difficulties. Turn to Him in your moments of weakness and invite Him to show Himself strong on your behalf.  Whether or not you feel strong is irrelevant.  Don’t wallow in it.  Immerse yourself in your God. Let Him be your strong tower. Let Him bring out the best in you.

Question: What weaknesses are consuming your attention? Drawing you to look at yourself instead of the bigness of your God?  Let God show himself strong in spite of your circumstances.  Talk to Him today. His gracious favor is all you need. 

Sorry about the title and yes it is a trick question. I borrowed it from Stuart McAllister. Does your mother know that you are stupid? There is no good answer to this question.  If you say yes – you are acknowledging your stupidity. If you say no, you are acknowledging her ignorance of your stupidity. If you say I don’t know – you are saying you are too stupid to even know how your mother feels about you. 

Indeed, questions can have an embedded assumption or assertion. No wonder, very often Jesus would ask a question in return, when confronted with a question. He did it to force people to think, and to force them to open up within their own assumptions. He had a way of helping people come to grips with their motivation.

When asked in Matthew 19 “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” he responded, “Why ask me about what is good?”

When approached by some Pharisees about a woman caught in adultery they asked: “The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” he responded with a statement – but really with a question of self-examination “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”

Consider this classic example in 

Luke 20:20-22 nlt  Watching for their opportunity, the leaders sent secret agents pretending to be honest men. They tried to get Jesus to say something that could be reported to the Roman governor so he would arrest Jesus. ²¹ They said, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right and are not influenced by what others think. You sincerely teach the ways of God. ²² Now tell us – is it right to pay taxes to the Roman government or not?”

To understand what is happening here, we need to consider the context. The religious people asking the question believed they were God’s chosen people and enslaved by the Roman Government. Their belief was that if you pay taxes, you are financing oppression of God’s holy people. It is why Jesus just couldn’t say yes. If he did, due to their cultural assumptions, they would accuse him of compromising his holiness to save his own life. If he says no, they would then turn him over to the Roman government to be charged with tax evasion. Jesus chose to respond to the question with one of his own.

Luke 20:23-26 He saw through their trickery and said, ²⁴ ”Show me a Roman coin. Whose picture and title are stamped on it?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. ²⁵ “Well then,” he said, “give to Caesar what belongs to him. But everything that belongs to God must be given to God.” ²⁶ So they failed to trap him in the presence of the people. Instead, they were amazed by his answer, and they were silenced.

He answers the question – give to Cesar what belongs to him and by that, he shows them that it doesn’t make you unholy. Holiness is about giving to God what is rightfully His. I have wondered, why they didn’t ask the next logical question. So, what belongs to God? He could have then led them into how a right understanding on how to worship God in a way that is true and holy. 

It is important that we check our motives before we launch the question. Here are some “questions” to prepare our hearts toward God.

Am I honestly seeking to know what is true? Have I “loaded” the question to shape the response I want to hear?

Lord, what wrong assumptions about you have I brought into this conversation?

This is an excerpt from of the most gifted teachers and writers that I learn from. F.W. Boreham captures in his essay “The Sword of Solomon” why life is to be valued.

“There is a sense in which two and two are four, the plane of ledgers and cashbooks – on which these propositions are approximately sound. But if you rise from that plane to a loftier one, you will find at once that they are untenable … it is obviously untrue that half-a-baby and half-a-baby make a baby. Let the sword do its deadly work… The two halves of a baby make no baby at all. On this higher plane of human sentiment and experience, the laws of mathematics collapse completely.

When a man distributes his wealth among his children, he gives to each a part.  But when a woman distributes her love among her children, she gives it all to each … No man who has once fallen in love will ever be persuaded that one and one are only two. He looks at her, and feels that one plus one would be a million … No happy couple into the sweet shelter of whose home a little child has come will ever be convinced that two and one are only three. Life has been enriched a thousandfold by the addition of that one little life to theirs. And I am certain that no pair from whose clinging and protecting arms their treasure has been snatched will find comfort in the assurance that one from three leaves two. In the great crises of life one’s faith in figures breaks down hopelessly. “