Thoughts on 2 Corinthians 12:9

 Thoughts on 2 Corinthians 12:9 by Richard T. Ritenbaugh

"And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

God's grace is sufficient for us. Grace in general terms is "favor." It is what God favors us with, what He gives to us. It can include spiritual gifts or physical things that He provides. By His grace, we have food to eat every day, we have clothes to wear, and we have a roof over our heads or cars to drive. Every good thing we have is supplied by God's amazing grace.

Paul considered his "thorn in the flesh" to be part of God's grace, a hard thing to say. How could he say that an affliction that God allowed could be part of His grace toward him? Because with an infirmity, whatever it happened to be, God balanced out for Paul the revelations that he had received, so that he would not become big-headed, sin presumptuously, and lose his salvation.

It was good, for example, for Paul to be afflicted by imprisonment, because if he were not much of the New Testament would not have been written, He affirmed this when he said, "I'm content being afflicted, because I know that God's grace is sufficient for me."

This affliction was good because it helped him to achieve all that the Lord set before him to do in the behalf of God's kingdom.

We have a hard time thinking this way. We consider this sort of affliction to be evil, but Paul turns that on its head, saying, "No, it is good, because with this affliction, I am weak, and because I am weak, I rely totally upon God rather than on myself.

When God's people rely on him instead of on their own devices, the work of Heaven is completed through the will of the Holy One rather than through the arrogance of mere men.