How easily I forget. . .

People in leadership have an exposed backside. Those behind them can use it as a target.

This happened to the Apostle Paul. In 2 Corinthians he wrote to a church that was influenced by false apostles and teachers who looked better and did more spectacular things than he did, or so they supposed. He was not only being kicked, but also accused of things that were not true.

Most people become defensive when falsely accused. Some remain silent. In this situation, Paul could do neither. If he protested too much, he might look guilty. If he stayed quiet, these people were in danger. Their spiritual health and walk with God were threatened. How he handled this problem is highly instructive.

Mostly he reminded them of true things that they already knew. He reiterated what he had done among them and said he would continue to care about them. In regard to false teachers, he said, “For such are false apostle, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is not a great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness. . . .” (2 Corinthians 12:13-15).

He went on to tell them his credentials, to “boast a little,” were his words. He said, “What I speak, I speak not according to the Lord, but as it were, foolishly, in the confidence of boasting. Seeing that many boast according to the flesh, I also will boast.” He felt that since they put up with false teachers who boasted, even received them and allowed them to put them in bondage to their ideas, then he needed to risk this in order to jolt them to their senses.

He told them what he’d had before he met Christ, and how he had abandoned all those things that the flesh would consider significant so that he might know Christ better. He told them of the things he had endured as a servant of Jesus Christ and as their servant too. He also told them of visions and great revelations God had given him, and how God allowed a “thorn in the flesh” to keep him weak and depending upon Him. He shared that he was glad for his weaknesses because “when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Then Paul said, “I have become a fool in boasting; you have compelled me. For I ought to have been commended by you; for in nothing was I behind the most eminent apostles, though I am nothing.”

When I read through this, I thought about the difficulty of trying to maintain humility in an adequate and necessary defense of what is being done in the name of Christ. Paul did it by reiterating what he was doing, but also sharing his weakness and inability to do it. In other words, he defended his ministry because it was Jesus Christ doing it through him. He had in himself nothing worth defending.

My devotional reading for today says that when the Lord has brought me down to be nothing, He then makes His strength perfect in that nothingness. He communicates strength to pray, strength to believe, strength to hope. The author likens this to the poor man with the withered hand to whom Jesus said, “Stretch forth thine hand.”

This man was unable to make his hand function, but Christ’s strength was made perfect in weakness. When He spoke, it moved. This is also like Lazarus who was dead and in the grave. Yet when Jesus’ voice of love and power spoke, “Lazarus, come forth,” life came to that dead corpse. It was the same for Old Testament believers, who “out of weakness were made strong” (Hebrews 11:34).

This is true for me also. My weakness, helplessness and inability are the very things which allow the power, strength and grace of Jesus to flow through me. When I am strong, confident and filled with the sense of ‘I can do it’ then I simply block Him from doing it.

How easily I forget that it is okay, no, not just okay, but preferable, to be weak.