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JimfromOhio

I am happlily married with 5 kids. I am an accoutant and worked in an accounting field for over 25 years. I like to make a habit of writing down whenever I have deep thoughts about God (so I won't forget). I really into Reformed Theology that is connected to Presbyterian Church in America.

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Location: Columbus, Ohio, United States

I enjoy having deep thoughts about God and put down what I actually think about (so I won't forget).

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

"Is there sufficient grace to help us in every issue of life?"

"Is there sufficient grace to help us in every issue of life?" Life is filled with difficulty. Life is filled with pain and sorrow and suffering. Bad things happen to everybody because we are living in a sinful world. Things will go wrong, they will go wrong all the time and that God has given us the grace to survive. God has given us the grace to sanctify us. The sources of "thorns" can be weaknesses, insults, distresses, persecutions and difficulties. We don't know the source of Paul's thorn but when Paul wrote later, he listed all the thorns and he didn't say which one he was experiencing. In my personal view, reading Corinthians and history of Corinthians, Paul defines this thorn in his flesh, a messenger of Satan (that's another word for a demon, Satan's angel). A demon had moved in to some false teachers, brought the false teachers into the Corinthian church. The false teachers were trying to destroy his reputation because of his past (murderer). I believed that Paul saw this as a thorn in his flesh. It was tearing him because of his great love for the church and the people in Corinthians. Instead of fighting with false teachers, God gave Paul grace to endure and allow God to handle the situation. Paul just needed to focus on God rather than the problem. God uses suffering to perfect His power as verse 9 said "Power is perfected in weakness". God is saying "You should not have self-confidence and trust in yourself in the sense you believe you're capable of anything eternal that only I can provide grace and power." Only God can overcome situation as long as you trust in His GRACE. The question here is, when God given you the grace to handle the sufferings of life, did you allowed Him? That's the issue. Paul’s thorn was not his main focus but rather something far more deeper. The thorns are not necessarily evil, but rather the works of self-righteousness. God answer to our prayers because He knows that our trouble does not lie in our focus, but in ourselves. God is not here to get our circumstances straightened out so that we will become happy. Grace of heart is a gift from God and this has nothing to do with the thorns because God change our circumstances by changing us internally, by allowing Him to lift us above our present thorn and He will lead us into His will. It is a choice God gives us within the parameters of His omnipotence. Grace is having all sufficiency in everything we may have an abundance for every good deed. The right perspective is to understand that in the trouble of life this is part of it trying to discern what God is doing in the trouble of it. James says count it all joy when you fall into various trials cause trials have a perfecting work. Peter says after you've suffered a while the Lord will make you perfect. God uses suffering to reveal our spiritual condition. In the midst of the sufferings, what kind of Christian do you see yourself? God answers not by removing the pain, because the pain was productive, rather God gave Grace to endure. In this life it is inevitable and it is useful because it produces the evidence of your true spiritual condition, humility and intimacy with God and allows God to put Himself on display in His grace. "Therefore as, we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially those who belong to the family of believers" (Galatians 6:10). The needs of the people, not our own convenience, decide how far we shall go and how much we shall do. Had there been no Fall there would have been no thorns and no cross. Christ was the perfect example of the healthy normal man, He did not live a normal life. He sacrificed many pure enjoyments to the holy work of moral rescue. That example taught me that the needs of the world and my ability to minister to those needs. God is not primarily an emotion, but an act of the will that true Christian love is the love of willing, not the love of feeling. It's the devil who would like to make our life superficial prosperous, superficial successful, superficial happiness and superficial peace because then we pride ourselves with pride so others can see how much faith we have. God's power is GRACE and that is where my faith is.