But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me,” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
The Apostle Paul would have had good reason to boast in his own abilities. A faithful Jew before his conversion, Paul knew the Law and Prophets like the back of his hand. Paul followed the law as best he could, dotting his I’s and crossing his T’s. Even his persecution of early Christians was believed to be faithful to the Scriptures as the Jews understood them. Upon his Damascus Road experience, Saul became Paul and lived a life devoted to Jesus Christ and the spread of his Gospel. Virtually every church in the East had Paul’s fingerprints in their founding. Nearly two-thirds of our New Testament was authored by the Apostle. So why is it this man who chooses not to boast in his own deeds for God?
Because Jesus Christ was far better! The human Paul pales in comparison to the Godman that is Jesus. In verse 8, we see that Paul is afflicted with a “thorn in the flesh,” so that he would not revel in his own deeds but fully rely on Christ. Consider your thorn in the flesh, that sin you just can’t seem to shake. We all have them, no one is immune to a “speck in their eye.” I’ve lived most of my life as a perfectionist, never satisfied with my work and always striving for better. I know my weaknesses and they haunt me almost daily. Maybe some of you relate to my “thorn in the flesh.”
What are we to do? Consider Paul’s response: “So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10, emphasis added). When we are made weak, that is when God’s grace shines brightest in our lives. Confess sins, admit your weaknesses; step out in faith and be made strong in the grace of God. I pray you will join me in boasting in the sufficient grace for you, for God’s power made perfect in weakness.