CHILD
OF WEAKNESS
BREAD
7 To
keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great
revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to
torment me. 8 Three
times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 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 about my
weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ's
sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in
difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (NIV)
32 And
what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson,
Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered
justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the
flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to
strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their
dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so
that they might gain a better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging,
while still others were chained and put in prison. 37 They were stoned; they were
sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins
and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- 38 the world was not worthy of
them.
Hebrews 11:32-38 (NIV)
28 Do
you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord
is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow
tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. 29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak. 30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men
stumble and fall; 31 but
those who hope in the Lord will
renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and
not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:28-31 (NIV)
13 I
can do everything through him who gives me strength.
Phil 4:13 (NIV)
BUTTER
“I hear the Savior say, ‘Thy strength indeed is small; child
of weakness watch and pray, find in Me thine all in all.’” Elvina M. Hall
“Jesus is the
One who shows us the paradoxical route to meaning in a chaotic and hostile
world. It’s the paradox of the gospel:
Strength is found in weakness. Control is found in dependency. Power is found
in surrender….God uses the frustrations of this life and the hurt of
relationships to compel us to look beyond what we can control to the God who
controls all things in order to woo us to himself. As we move from control to surrender,
we move from chasing the wind under the sun to embracing God above it.” Dan
Allender, Breaking the Idols of You
“The
foundational principle of grace is that God’s kingdom priorities are completely
inverted from those of the world. God’s plan is to magnify His saving mercy and
grace not through human strength but rather through its weakness…The gospel of
grace would remind us that we can’t be used until we operate not out of our own
strength but in weakness, as we depend on Christ’s Spirit to show the reality
of the cross.” Paul
Kooistra
“When God is our
strength, it is strength indeed; when our strength is our own, it is only
weakness.” St. Augustine
“A
primary qualification for serving God with any amount of success, and for doing
God’s work well and triumphantly, is a sense of our own weakness. When God’s warrior marches forth to battle,
strong in his own might, when he boasts, ‘I know that I shall conquer, my own
right arm and my conquering sword shall get unto me the victory’, defeat is not
far distant. God will not go forth with
that man who marches in his own strength.
He who reckoneth on victory thus has reckoned wrongly, for ‘it is not by
might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts’. They who go forth to fight, boasting of their
prowess, shall return with their gay banners trailed in the dust, and their
armour stained with disgrace. Those who
serve God must serve Him in His own way, and in His strength, or He will never
accept their service. That which man
doth, unaided by divine strength, God can never own. The mere fruits of the earth He casteth away;
He will only reap that corn, the seed of which was sown from heaven, watered by
grace, and ripened by the sun of divine love.
God will empty out all that thou hast before He will put His own into
thee; He will first clean out the granaries before He will fill them with the
finest of the wheat……Your emptiness is but the preparation for your being
filled, and your casting down is but the making ready for your lifting up.” C. H. Spurgeon
HEART SAVOR
- · God’s power is made perfect in my weakness.
- · Jesus turns my weakness into strength.
- · I can do everything through Him Who gives me strength.
