A Thorn in the Flesh

[Christsfreeservant]

“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10 ESV).​

The apostle Paul was once a man named Saul who was a Jew and a Pharisee and a persecutor of Christians. Then one day Jesus Christ visited him, I believe in a vision, on a road to Damascus where Saul/Paul was headed to persecute even more Christians. And it was there that Jesus Christ transformed Saul’s/Paul’s life and he called him to be one of his apostles and to take the gospel to Jew and to Gentile and to be a spiritual father to the church, the body of Christ, to teach them how to live as Christians.

Well, in order for Paul to do what God had called him to do, he received many spiritual and supernatural revelations from God, some or all of which have been recorded in the Christian Bible. And so there was a danger that Paul might become conceited, not that he would take credit for what certainly came from God, and not from himself, but that he might become conceited because God had chosen him, and because of these supernatural revelations God was giving him, just because God was giving them to him.

And so he was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass him, to keep him from becoming conceited. Now who wanted Paul to not be conceited? God. So God gave this thorn to Paul. He allowed Satan to inflict Paul with this thorn, just like he allowed Satan to do what he did to Job who was a righteous man of God. So God allowed this in Paul’s life to keep him from becoming conceited over these great revelations that the Lord was giving him. Paul needed that thorn to keep him humble and trusting God.

Now we don’t know what that thorn was, although many people have speculated. What we do know is that it was not addictive sin. For if we are living in sin, and we plead with the Lord to remove that sin out of our lives, the Lord is not going to refuse us and tell us that we must continue to struggle with (regularly giving in to) sin to keep us from becoming conceited. For Jesus Christ died on that cross that we might die to sin and live to his righteousness and in walks of obedience to his commands.

So, it could have been his blindness, or it could have been Satan just tormenting him in his spirit, accusing him falsely of things he did not do and say, or trying to get him to fail, trying to get him to doubt God, trying to make him feel guilty over things he had no reason to feel guilty over. And Satan will use other humans to do his dirty work, too, to try to get us discouraged and disheartened so that we will give up and back down and stop sharing the truth of the gospel and stop exposing the lies.

So, when we feel that convicting voice in our spirits we should first of all take it to the Lord in prayer, inquiring of the Lord if there is anything we have said wrong and done wrong that maybe we are not aware of. For we should always be open to the voice of the Holy Spirit correcting us where we need corrected. In fact, I have recently withdrawn an entire video and I made changes to several documents I posted because the Holy Spirit let me know I had something wrong, not intentionally wrong, but still wrong.

But once the Lord has cleared us, and we know that we have done all that we know to do to make something right, that needs to be made right, then we need to rest in the Lord and let him fill us with his peace, and then we need to move on. And if Satan nags us and harasses us, we can reject what he is saying, knowing that what he is speaking are lies, and so we reject the lies. But here is the other part of this. We need to be okay with insults and hardships and persecutions, etc. We need to not let them take us out.

Now, this is not saying that we cannot or that we should not come to our own defense. Jesus did. Paul did. Peter and John did. But then we have to accept that such persecutions against us, or even misunderstandings directed against us, were allowed by God in our lives for a purpose, and we must be reconciled to the fact that, as followers of Christ, we are going to have those. And when we do, we must rely on the strength of the Lord to get us through those times and to give us wisdom in how to respond, too.

But we cannot let them take us out. Right now there are many things which are hidden and that we don’t have answers for or explanations for, and so we just have to put our lives in the hands of the Lord and trust him that he will teach us what we need to learn through these trials, and that we will grow stronger in our walks of faith because of them. And then we need to just keep pressing forward in continuing to do the will of God, as best as we understand it, for the glory of God, in the power and strength of our Lord.

[Matt 5:10-12; Matt 10:16-25; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 6:22-23; Lu 21:12-19; Jn 15:1-21; Jn 16:33; Jn 17:14; Ac 14:22; Rom 5:3-5; Phil 3:7-11; 1 Pet 1:6-7; 1 Pet 4:12-17; 2 Tim 3:12; 1 Thess 3:1-5; Jas 1:2-4; 2 Co 1:3-11; Heb 12:3-12; 1 Jn 3:13; Rev 6:9-11; Rev 7:9-17; Rev 11:1-3; Rev 12:17; Rev 13:1-18; Rev 14:1-13]

Video Talk

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Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer

Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897
Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897

Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

Oh, to be like Thee! full of compassion,
Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,
Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,
Seeking the wandering sinner to find.

O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,
Holy and harmless, patient and brave;
Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,
Willing to suffer others to save.

O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,
Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;
Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,
Fit me for life and Heaven above.

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

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