The Thorn Afflicts Me and The Spirit Takes Me

STUDY: #883-CHURCH IN THE HOUSES FROM: JANUARY 5 @ 11, 2016

Topic: "The Thorn Afflicts Me and The Spirit Takes Me" 2 Corinthians 12: 7-12

"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given a thorn in my flesh ..." (2 Corinthians 12: 7) The thorn or the thorns cannot be our guides but rather the Holy Spirit. But, the stinger produces the necessary affliction for our flesh that is arrogant. Do you know how arrogant one can be? We shouldn’t think that what we have are complexes, no, what we have is pride. We also blame it to the insecurities, but in reality what betrays us is the excessive esteem that we have of ourselves. Greatness and compliments overwhelm us! For that reason, one cannot become a servant of God because what is desired is to be a master, and not a servant! That is why we see that Paul’s thorn had a why. The apostle said "... there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me." There is a reason to have the thorn: it is to set us free from our pride. Pride is motivated by something; it is almost always because of how well things are going for us. When successes are seen, then we can be applauded! That is why, if you know the history of people who accomplished great things, you'll see that they had thorns, or they were very tortured by their mind, or by family problems or persecutions; things that would not allow them to become vain in their hearts. Our Paul had great revelations! From Jesus Himself came the call to become apostle: "Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God ..." (1 Corinthians 1: 1) So the one who represented the beloved Jesus needed a spine deep inside him to stick him every time he boasted of everything he knew. Because knowledge can bring us vanity, for such reason the spine (the thorn) is needed. The only thing Paul had left to do was to pray and pray, once and again pray to that it would be removed from him, but he had no response for what he requested; this had to happen! (Vs. 8) "...three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me ..."). He wanted such thorn to be taken away from him. Paul saw this as an obstacle to the effectiveness of his apostolic labors. But the spine (the thorn) was not taken away from him but rather God said to him. "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (Vs. 9) We must preserve the weakness of what our deficiencies are so that we do not believe to be more than what we will never be. Although we may be stunned, lost in our thoughts, power will flow; it will abound from God when it is necessary. Paul recognizes what he was lacking: "...I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ’s power may rest in me. That is why; for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties (difficulties suffered for Christ's sake); for when I am weak, then I am strong. "(Vs. 9-10) In human weakness we see how the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit is revealed to Paul. (Psalms 143: 10. "Teach me to do your will for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground"). When you are incapacitated, that's when you're stronger because the presence of the Spirit of Christ intervenes. "May your good Spirit lead me..." If the Spirit guides us we cannot faint; we will be firm.

God has His powerful means that He uses in our lives so that we be guided, by the Holy Spirit. He sends the thorn as a sore and it is not our matter to discuss. And the Holy Spirit is His means to take us to His holy will. If we know Him we know very well that God enables us. He enables us when there is so much weakness in us, not because of the sin, but because of our weak nature as we come from the dust. Genesis 1: 1-2 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." When the Lord created the earth, we can see that it is called formless. But, that is in regard to you and me, not for Him. In everything that seemed formless, the presence of the Deity would be there. The Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit, the powerful means God used to work with all the creation, God's active force that moved from one side to another. It was the Holy Spirit in operation, in action or maneuver. The one in charge is the Holy Spirit, the dynamic force by which the creation was carried out. The Spirit knows everything throughout the centuries. It is God! He indeed knows how to make it all perfect and efficient! You and me, NO! Therefore, we depend entirely on the Holy Spirit. We need to allow the thorn to carry out the function of appeasing our vanity and in this way see how limited our human forces are, then we will find ourselves weak and lazy and leave our ways to avoid damaging the holy. And as it did in creation, let it be the Holy Spirit who moves in us to guide us and not our strength. Then we will be dependent on God to guide us to his holy will; let it not come from us. Amen.