READING: 2 Corinthians 10-13
TEXTS AND APPLICATION: Today completes our reading of 2 Corinthians. As I read these chapters, I think much about priorities of the world (especially for men). We want to be strong. We strive to be winners. We want others to see us as tough. Our heroes are sports figures and military victors. We long for our family and friends to view us as winners.
I understand those goals. In fact, I push in those directions, too. But . . . then I read verses like these from the latter chapters of 2 Corinthians:
2 Cor. 10:10 (where Paul’s enemies said of him): “His letters are weighty and powerful, but his physical presence is weak, and his public speaking is despicable.”
2 Cor. 11:30 If boasting is necessary, I [Paul] will boast about my weaknesses.
2 Cor. 12:9-10 But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for 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. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, catastrophes, persecutions, and in pressures, because of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Cor. 13:4 In fact, He [Jesus] was crucified in weakness, but He lives by God’s power. For we also are weak in Him, yet toward you we will live with Him by God’s power.
In these texts, God’s Word flies in the face of our contemporary thinking. We are not to be strong; we are to be weak so He alone might be our strength. We’re to strive to be last, not first; to be a servant, not a master. We aim to lose our life in order to win, to die in order to live. We must be willing to be a nobody for Jesus’ sake.
Strange, isn’t it, in the world’s eyes?
But, it’s not the world’s eyes that should matter to us.
ACTION STEPS: Take a serious risk today by asking God to make you weak.
PRAYER: “Lord, that prayer scares me, but I want to be in the best position to serve and please You. Take me there, regardless of the cost today.”
TOMORROW’S READING: Acts 20:1-3, Romans 1-3
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