2 Corinthians 12 • God’s Grace Is Sufficient
In the midst of messy and painful circumstances, you have a choice of whom to promote—yourself or Christ. In the last article, we looked at how our response to hardships reveals whom we are following—Christ, ourselves, or the world. This is post #11 in the God-Dependent Woman blog series. In this post, we will let 2 Corinthians chapter 12 teach us how and why God’s grace is sufficient for every need so that His power can be made perfect in our weakness.
Listen to this post as a similar podcast from The God-Dependent Woman Bible Study covering 2 Corinthians in the New Testament. (11 lessons)
Paul’s Extraordinary Experience
The heavenly vision
Reading all of 2 Corinthians chapter 12 brought tears to my eyes. There is so much in it that speaks to my heart. Everything in it grabbed my attention, beginning with the heavenly vision.
I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. (2 Corinthians 12:2-4)
That one extraordinary experience certainly contrasts with sneaking out of Damascus in a basket as we saw at the end of chapter 11.
“The third heaven” was a Jewish reference to God’s abode. We learn later in the passage that Paul was the man who was caught up to the throne room of God, literally “snatched up” by God, where he heard inexpressible things that he could not reveal. This happened around 42 A.D. while Paul was back in Tarsus ministering in the regions of Syria and Cilicia. That was before Paul went to Antioch to pastor the church there and before he went on any missionary journey. He kept that experience to himself for all those years and refrained from boasting about that experience.
Who can do that on their own? No one! Christ gave him the ability to do that. And he only told about that experience here in 2 Corinthians because of his friends’ gullible acceptance of the false teachers claiming they were better than Paul. They were questioning his apostleship and authority over them. Paul basically said in verse 11, “I am telling you this because you drove me to it!”
The thorn in the flesh
God gave Paul a thorn in the flesh to keep him from being conceited about having this personal experience. We have no idea what this “thorn” was except that it was an ongoing, physical ailment. He called it a messenger from Satan whom God permitted to harass him similar to what happened to Job. Most of us can identify with having an irritating thorn or splinter stuck in our skin at some point in our lives.
The Message translation puts it this way,
I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. (2 Corinthians 12:7, MSG)
Oh, yeah.
Are all our physical ailments from Satan? No. Most of the time they are simply from living in a fallen world where sin has caused disease and destruction. Sometimes God does the afflicting as in the case of Jacob in Genesis 32:22-32 so that our pride would be destroyed. We have seen in 2 Corinthians that God allows us to experience physical stresses with the purpose of strengthening our faith as we rely on Him to handle them. A thorn is anything that drives us to God, making us weak so we have to depend on Him. The truth is that the thorn experiences make us more usable towards God’s purposes than the “third heaven” ones do. We get that right here in 2 Corinthians chapter 12.
God says, “No”
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9 first part)
Paul asked three times for the Lord Jesus Christ to remove that thorn. Only three times? Then, Paul listened to Jesus say “no” to removing the thorn. And Jesus gave him the reason for doing so. The Lord said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
God’s Grace Is Sufficient
Gifts of grace
When Jesus said to Paul that His grace was sufficient, He used a word meaning “to be possessed of unfailing strength, to be enough.” God’s grace is His unmerited favor toward humans. It is a gift from God that we don’t deserve and can never earn.
- Salvation by faith alone through Christ alone is a gift of God’s grace.
- The Holy Spirit’s presence in every believer as a deposit guaranteeing our future inheritance of a perfected body and soul is a gift of God’s grace.
- Being transformed into the likeness of Christ during this earthly life of ours is a gift of God’s grace.
- All those wonderful treasures that come to us as new creations in Christ are gifts of God’s grace. They are enough to make us into whatever God purposes for us to be.
- God’s protection and deliverance from deadly peril are gifts of God’s grace.
- Every healing. Every answer to prayer. Every time we get guidance about what to do and where to go. Those are gifts of God’s grace.
All of those gifts of grace are sufficient to get us through this life and have joy in the process.
Made perfect in weakness
“Made perfect” means “perfected, finished, exactly fitting the need in a certain situation or purpose.” Christ’s power made perfect in weakness is what He did on the cross for us! It is what He wants to do in us and through us.
Christ’s power is sufficient to strengthen us and display the glory of God in our lives.
As these beautiful words say,
Jesus Christ gave His life for you, so He could give His life to you, so He could live His life through you. (Major Ian Thomas, The Saving Life of Christ)
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is sufficient to save us. It is sufficient to regenerate our dead spirits so that we are spiritually alive for eternity. And it is sufficient for Him to live His life through us as we let Him.
Our Response to God’s Sufficiency
Respond with surrender
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9 second part-10)
After Paul heard from Jesus, his tone changed from pleading with the Lord to remove the thorn to considering it a good thing. You could paraphrase Paul’s response this way, “Hooray for my weaknesses. I want Christ and His power on me more than my own.”
Paul declared, “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” Who can boast more gladly about their weaknesses on their own? No one! Christ gave Paul the ability to do that. Christ gives us the ability to do that as well.
When you admit that you are weak, you desire Christ’s power to rest on you. Don’t think “taking a nap.” The word Paul used means “to take possession of you, to act on your behalf.” You desire for His power to take possession of you and act on your behalf. It is a heart change when you desire more of Him and less of yourself. That makes you strong because you stay Christ-focused, not woe-is-me focused. The results will be the best for you and for those influenced by you for Christ’s sake.
He works through us. People see it and give Him praise. It is a win/win.
Consider hard things to be good
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10)
Did Paul really mean “delight” in all those hard things? Other translations use “consider good” and “think well of.” Those phrases are easier to understand than delight. Why would Paul now delight in or think well of those hard things? We have seen already what he has said about them in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, chapter 6, and chapter 11.
Those hard experiences served as opportunities to let Christ’s power shine through Paul’s jar of clay. They were opportunities to make him rely on Christ and show others how to do that also. He had stories to tell testifying about Christ. Each one strengthened his faith and ability to trust God. Christ’s power showed up in him again, and again, and again. Paul preached Christ through it all. None of that stopped him. He knew Jesus was with him.
Paul exhibited more and more the character of Christ in his life. We see that in the pages of Scripture. As the years passed, he relied more on Christ, so Christ showed through him. The Holy Spirit made sure we could see that too. As Paul wrote to the churches, his words were the Lord’s words to them and to us. God deemed those 13 letters we have in our New Testament to be significant enough to make them Scripture for us.
Read more about Paul’s life transformation in, “Acts 8-12 • Paul, A Misdirected Life Transformed.”
Paul followed Christ. He wanted those looking at his life to see how to follow Christ so that they would do it too. He did not do everything right. We won’t either. Praise God that His gift of grace is sufficient to cover our mistakes as well!
It is in our weaknesses that He is the strongest. He uses many things to come to our rescue and to comfort us. Sometimes all we can do is to get into the basket provided for us, be quiet, and trust the One holding the rope. Whether weak or strong, living dependently on Christ is the best way to live.
Dependent Living Is Hard
Dependent living is hard. It is trusting God’s grace to be sufficient to handle anything in life. It is trusting Him for strength all the time, not just when you cannot do something on your own. Dependent living is doing everything in the sight of God, through Christ, and for the strengthening of other believers around us. It leads to being humbled by God before others so they see Christ more than you. And that may include being grieved by unrepentant sin in those around you.
All of that is in 2 Corinthians chapter 12.
Is depending on God acknowledging His strength?
This is our saying to evaluate in this post, “Depending on God isn’t a weakness … It’s acknowledging His strength. The more we depend on God the more dependable we find He is.”
This is a true saying. Dependent living isn’t weakness. We do acknowledge His strength when we choose to depend on Him. The more we do so, the more we personally discover how truly dependable He is and has been all along. It is a win/win.
Reasons Why God Wants Us to Depend on Him More Than on Ourselves
From our passage, here are some reasons why God wants us to depend on Him more than on ourselves:
- To refrain from boasting about personal spiritual experiences. (12:6)
- Enduring a thorn in the flesh that God chooses not to heal. (12:7-8)
- Trusting God’s grace to be sufficient. (12:9)
- Being glad about weaknesses so Christ’s power shines. (12:9)
- Trusting Him for strength. (12:10)
- To love others so much you don’t want to “use” them in any way. (12:14)
- To spend ourselves for others to grow spiritually. (12:15, 19)
- To walk by the Spirit consistently with other believers. (12:17)
- Facing sin in those we love. (12:20-21)
In the next post, we will see that we need to depend on Christ as we stand for truth and obedience to Him.
Let Jesus satisfy your heart with confidence that you can depend on Him. Then, live each day as a God-dependent woman!
All of the above information is covered in The God-Dependent Woman Bible Study of 2 Corinthians.
AI was not used to generate this post.
