“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.” (1 Peter 5:6 NKJV)
“I will boast only in the LORD; let all who are helpless take heart.” (Psalm 34:2 NLT)
“Know for certain that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations from before you. But they shall be snares and traps to you, and scourges on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land which the LORD your God has given you.” (Joshua 23:13 NKJV)
I feel like I need to pause for a minute and catch my breath. The Holy Spirit has thrown everything I have thought about Paul’s thorn in the flesh out the window and replaced it with a refreshing new understanding. My soul (mind) is trying to catch up with my spirit. Have you ever had a teacher that is very clear in what he or she is teaching, but moves so fast that you struggle to keep up? That is how I feel at times as the Holy Spirit teaches me. My reborn spirit (which has the mind of Christ) is saying, “Go Spirit Go!” while my soul (my natural mind which is working on being renewed) is screaming, “wait up guys, I’ve gotta catch my breath.”
When I read Paul’s letter to the Church at Corinth (2 Corinthians 11 – 12), I now see a completely different message than I used to. I see a challenge to tap into God’s Grace in order to use what I possess in Christ to overcome Satan and his demonic forces (messenger) rather than blindly accept hardships thinking that God either allowed or personally gave them to me. Instead of hearing a message of being humbled by God, I am hearing a message of the exaltation that the Lord blesses me with when I choose to humble myself. What a wonderful difference!
To reiterate what I have learned so far:
…11:1 – 12:1a: Paul, in defense of challenges made to his credibility as an Apostle, shares all of his experience and credentials that he could “boast” about. He concludes in 12:1a “It is doubtless not profitable for me to boast.”
…12:1b – 12:6: Paul now shares his “visions and revelations” and again concludes, “Of such a one I will not boast…for though I might boast, I will not be a fool.” Paul is living the Truth that he knew so well from the life and teaching of Jesus. He was choosing to remain humble and “boast in the Lord.”
…12:7: Paul knew that humbling himself before the Lord would result in being exalted (being given a place of impact and influence in, and for, the Kingdom of Heaven). I believe this is why he immediately recognized that this demon (“messenger of Satan”) was sent to keep him from being “exalted above measure.” For many years I missed what was right in front of my eyes because I was hung up on trying to make the “thorn” some sort of physical ailment. I did this because of the word “flesh.” My mind was stuck on trying to redefine what Paul said so clearly because I equated “flesh” with “body.” When the Spirit opened my eyes to the fact that Paul was using a common figure of speech to describe the way the “messenger” affected him, it became obvious that the verse clearly told me what this “thorn” was – a demon. This type of language is also used in Joshua 23:13 when it calls the nations opposing Israel “thorns in your eyes.” Joshua was not saying that the Israelite’s had eye problems any more than Paul is saying that he has a physical ailment. They are both using figurative language to describe opposition (for the Israelite’s it was their human enemies, for Paul it was a demon). If I were the author of this verse I would probably call this demon a “pain in my butt!”
…12:8: Paul asked the Lord 3 times to kick this demon out of his life. Approximately 7 years later, when writing to the Church at Ephesus, Paul teaches them all about victorious spiritual warfare. Interestingly he never tells them to ask the Lord to fight Satan for them (remove their demons). Instead, he teaches them to put on the full armor of God, and take a stand themselves. He charges them to put on the “helmet of salvation” (covering of Grace) and use the sword of the Spirit (Word of God) to overcome Satan. Paul obviously learned the message of verse 9. By the way, this is is exactly what Jesus did when He was tempted by Satan in the wilderness. Each time Satan tempted Him He said, “It is written…” Remember, while Jesus always was, and always will be God; He was not living as God during His life on Earth. He had laid aside His innate deity and was living as a man totally in tune with God the Father, and completely reliant on the Holy Spirit. He never prayed and asked God to deal with Satan for Him. Instead, He used the tools that God had already given him. Paul learned to do the same.
…12:9: The Lord’s response to Paul is where I completely missed it. I thought the Lord was telling Paul, “You’re going to have to live with this; so my grace will be sufficient for you to handle it.” The Holy Spirit had to use a 2 x 4 up side my head a couple of times to get through to me on this one. He helped me to see that grace is not primarily given to allow me to live with troubles, but to empower me to overcome the trouble that tries to attach itself to my life (I will probably get deeper into what I am learning about grace in the future). Bottom line is that Paul was not being told to live with this “thorn.” He was being told that the grace that he already had was “sufficient” to kick it out. I think the reason that I mistakenly looked for the thorn to be some sort of physical ailment is due to the poor wording of the King James translation when it says “infirmity.” A far better rendering, which is commonly used in other translations (and in the King James at other places in this passage even though only one Greek word is used) is “weakness.” That explains why he said that he would “boast” in his “weakness” (troubles created by this demon to steal, kill, and destroy), because when he uses the empowerment of grace to do battle the “power (grace) of Christ” manifests in his life.
Take a breath…
Tomorrow we will look at verse 10.
Holy Spirit, enlighten us please as we continue to ponder…
… Eric’s Life Lesson # 78: “Time to turn over the apple cart.” Part 13: It’s my thorn in the flesh. (I’ve got some tweezers you can borrow) continued