Yesterday, Today, Forever

July 20

“I have become a fool in boasting; you have compelled me. For I ought to have been commended by you; for in nothing was I behind the most eminent apostles, though I am nothing. Truly the signs of an apostle were accomplished among you with all perseverance, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds. For what is it in which you were inferior to other churches, except that I myself was not burdensome to you? Forgive me this wrong!” II Corinthians 12:11-13.

That the unbelieving world around us is oblivious to the workings of God among us is no surprise. From the ungodly laws of man that should be abrogated to the demonic rage of terrorists that seems unabated it is apparent that those who have not made Jesus Christ their Savior and Lord are insensible to the move of the Holy One among men.

Yet Paul is here addressing that spirit of unbelief as it is found within the walls of the Church. He establishes his own credentials as an apostle among them in humility but without equivocating as to the power of God that has been evidenced among them.

He reminds them that they have fallen short of nothing regarding the move of the Holy Spirit in their midst through his evocation of the Word. In only one thing has he caused them to be ‘inferior’—he has not required their financial support.

Paul could be admonishing the Lord’s people today rather than those who sat in the shadow of the apostles. We deserve his chastisement, for we, too, tend to be dismissive of the promise, “You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall witness to Me in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth,” Acts 1:8.

How many of us languish in poor health because we do not appropriate to ourselves the promise that Jesus is “the same yesterday, today, and forever,” Hebrews 13:8, and therefore His healing power is available to us in our sickness?

How many of us accept our lack of daily needs because we forget that He has said, “God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus,” Philippians 4:19? It is as though we are unmindful of the glorious words David has spoken of His faithfulness in II Samuel 22:1-7:

“And David spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul: he said, The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer. He is my God of my rock; in Him will I trust: He is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my Savior; He saves me from violence.

“I will call on the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies. When the waves of death compassed me, the floods of ungodly men made me afraid; when the sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me; but in my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried to my God: and He did hear my voice out of His temple, and my cry did enter into His ears”

We, like David, must remind ourselves that we serve a miracle-working God who delights to demonstrate His goodness and mercy among His people. We must receive the correction of Paul that compels us to trust fully in the Holy One who inhabits eternity, in the One who has the power and the will to move among us in the fullness of who He is and what He can do to bless those who will simply receive all we need from His loving hand.