Paul’s Vision and His Thorn
…To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 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.” 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.
Paul’s Concern for the Corinthians
…Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? We have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ; and everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening. For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder. I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged.
Final Warnings
This will be my third visit to you. “Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” I already gave you a warning when I was with you the second time. I now repeat it while absent: On my return I will not spare those who sinned earlier or any of the others, since you are demanding proof that Christ is speaking through me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you. For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God’s power we will live with him to serve you.
Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test? And I trust that you will discover that we have not failed the test. Now we pray to God that you will not do anything wrong. Not that people will see that we have stood the test but that you will do what is right even though we may seem to have failed. For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. We are glad whenever we are weak but you are strong; and our prayer is for your perfection. This is why I write these things when I am absent, that when I come I may not have to be harsh in my use of authority—the authority the Lord gave me for building you up, not for tearing you down.
Final Greetings
Finally, brothers, good-by. Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you…
My Understanding: The Lord woke me with the song, “Jesus, Rescue Me,” so as I prayerfully considered this passage of scripture and what message or lesson the Lord would have me to receive from it, the Lord brought to mind how each section quoted here of these two final chapters in 2 Corinthians represented a possible or a definite situation in which someone needed for God to intervene and/or to rescue him or her from the body of sin and death. Jesus rescued us when he died on the cross for our sins so that we could go free, and we are rescued when we invite him into our hearts and lives to be our Lord and Savior. Yet, we daily need to be rescued and delivered from temptations and from yielding to sin’s deceitfulness. So, I pray, Lord Jesus, that you would reveal to your servant where I yet need to be rescued so that I can walk in fellowship and obedience to you each day. Amen!
Pride and Conceit
Paul said that he was given a “thorn in the flesh”, a messenger of Satan to torment him, in order to keep him from becoming conceited, because of all of the great revelations given to him by God. It is implied that God is the giver of this thorn, because only God would care about Paul not becoming conceited. There are many speculations concerning what this thorn might be, yet no one really knows for sure. We can, though, easily discern that he is not speaking of a sin issue, i.e. he was not yielding himself over to sin as his area of weakness. Otherwise, how could he preach to others against giving into sin and how could he speak so forcefully concerning divine discipline against sin issues if his weakness was a sin problem. As well, he would not delight in his weakness if it were related to a sin problem. So, it could be that he was just being attacked regularly by Satan in his mind in a manner that would be tormenting him in his thinking, or it could be that he had some kind of physical problem that tormented him which made his ministry ever the more dependent upon God’s grace.
We don’t have to decide what Paul’s thorn in the flesh was, though, in order to learn the underlying principle at work here. Sometimes God uses people greatly in ministry, and thus there might be the danger of conceit and pride setting in, so God allows that individual to suffer some kind of a weakness in order to keep the person humble and dependent upon God. As well, the area of weakness could reveal to the outsider how very much the giftedness of the individual is definitely from God and not from that person himself or herself. In this way, Jesus is rescuing the individual from conceit or pride by inflicting that person with some kind of weakness that would keep him or her humble and ever presently aware of his or her complete dependency on Almighty God for everything. In this way, his or her strength definitely comes from the Lord, and God’s power is thus made perfect in that person’s weakness. In other words, God is able to display his might and power through that individual because of the person’s weakness, and because of his or her recognition of his complete dependency upon God for all things.
Unrepented Sin
Paul was very concerned that when he came to visit the Corinthian church that he was going to have to severely exercise his apostolic authority in divine discipline against certain members within the church who had not yet repented of their sins of impurity, sexual sin, corruption, dishonesty, quarreling, outbursts of anger, gossip, and arrogance, etc. So, he was strongly encouraging them in the Lord to turn from their sins and to obey God so that he would not have to come to them with a strong arm of discipline. Paul did not enjoy or relish the thought that he might have to be severe in his discipline when he saw them in person, for it would greatly grieve him, not just that he would have to come to them in that manner, but he grieved that they were still giving way to such sin in their lives. He hurt for them that sin still was taking them captive after they had made a decision to believe in Jesus and to accept his salvation from sin.
So, Paul called upon those who were living in unrepentant sin in the Corinthian congregation to examine their own hearts and lives individually to see whether or not they had truly ever come to genuine faith and commitment to Jesus Christ. He called on them to examine themselves on the basis of the realization that if Christ is truly living within them that they should have changed hearts and minds, and that they should not be living in conscious and willful sin against God, unless, of course, they failed the test. Then Paul gave them some standards against which to test themselves. He said that he prayed that they would not do anything wrong, i.e. what is sinful, but that they would do what is right. There is no one perfect on this earth, yet our goal and our daily strides in God’s grace and strength within us should be to live for the Lord Jesus and to not allow willful sin to reign within us.
Another standard Paul set was in realizing that they could do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth. In other words, they were to examine their hearts and lives to see if there were any areas in their lives where they were, in fact, working against the truth of God, and/or where they were certainly not living for the truth of God and for his word. Another standard was that he prayed for their perfection, not in the sense of human perfectionism, but in the sense of sinlessness, which was to be their goal for which they were to strive in God’s grace and strength.
So, God’s way of rescuing us from unrepentant sin can be to inflict pain and suffering upon us, i.e. to exercise divine discipline and correction upon us, to send messengers to us to tell us that what we are doing is wrong and to call us to repent (to turn from our sin), and/or to call upon us to examine our own hearts and minds to see first of all if we are even in a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ. Many people might join a congregation or pray a prayer at an altar and think they have invited Jesus Christ into their hearts and yet never have truly made a heart change of repentance and faith and obedience to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. So, we need to make sure, first of all, that we really know Jesus by examining our hearts and lives against God’s word and against his measure for how he expects us to live our lives in freedom from the control of sin over our lives, which is why he died for our sins. Then, we are to examine our lives to see whether or not we are living in obedience to our Lord and we are daily repenting of any known sin and are walking in fellowship with the Lord in doing what is right in his eyes and in doing what is for the truth of God’s word.
The Lord gave me this prayer as a song during a time when I was struggling to know his will in a given situation, and he continues to bring it back into my mind as a way to remind me of my complete dependency upon him and my need for his help for me to obey him. I pray that it will be your prayer, too.
Jesus, Rescue Me / An Original Work / September 18, 2011
Based off of Romans 7:7-8:39
Jesus, rescue me today.
Listen while I bow and pray.
I need Your help to obey You;
Live for You always.
Meet me in my hour of need, Lord,
As I pray to You.
Help me walk in fellowship, Lord,
Living in Your truth.
Jesus, how I long for You to
Change my heart anew.
Father, God, my heart’s desire
Is to live for You this hour
In Your Holy Spirit’s power
Living in me now.
Teach me to walk in Your love, Lord,
Guiding me each day.
Help me to show love and kindness
To the lost, I pray.
Father, teach me to love others
As You love always.
Holy Spirit come in pow’r.
Revive our hearts in this hour.
Change our hearts to be like You, Lord;
Live for You each day.
Help us to forsake our sins, Lord,
As we humbly pray.
Teach us how to live for You, Lord,
Obey You always.
Holy Spirit come in power,
Revive us today.
Song Lyrics @ Public Domain
Audio, song lyrics and sheet music:
https://sites.google.com/site/psalmshymnssongs2/home/songs/jesus-rescue-me
Song on video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSILqpD-WJA
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