Words of Grace – June 2, 2016

The minister asked a woman in his church how things were going with her elderly father.  He had not been in church for several weeks and he wondered why.

“Well,” she answered, “he has issue.” She then went on to share some of the details.

After listening for a while, the minister responded, “Issues? It sounds like he’s got a whole year’s subscription!”

Twice in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul writes about the troubles that he experienced as a minister of the Lord.  In the sixth chapter, and again in the chapter eleven, he gives a list of them:  Afflictions, necessities, distresses, stripes, imprisonments, tumults, stonings, shipwrecks, perils, wearinesses, painfulnesses, hungernesses and thirstings.

When Paul cried out to the Lord to be delivered, he said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.  “When Paul gave his weakness to the Lord, he was made strong in “the power of Christ.”

Therefore he could take pleasure in his infirmities, reproaches, necessities, persecutions, and distresses.  He could suffer “for Christ’s sake.”