Get Over Yourself

When you get this, you really get it. It flows over you like a wave. Wraps around you like a warm blanket.

It makes you feel well. Excited. Like you have really discovered something.

I'm talking about when a particular truth of God is revealed to you in all it's clarity.

Clear. Concise. Weighty. Deep. Profound.

I remember when I found out I'm a weakling. Cowardly. Lazy. Irresponsible. 

I'm really not "all that". I'd like to think I am. But I'm not.

That's the reality of it. In truth it's who I am.

I had to be put back in touch with that. I had been thinking maybe I was a lot of things I'm really not.

I had to get past me.

I forgot where all my success, strength, happiness, joy, peace, comfort, bravery, etc. really lies.

It's in Christ, and I realized that I have been robbing Him of the credit.

2 Corinthians 12:10 (Amplified Bible) - "So for the sake of Christ, I am well pleased and take pleasure in infirmities, insults, hardships, persecutions, perplexities and distresses; for when I am weak ]in human strength], then am I [truly] strong (able, powerful in divine strength)."

Take pleasure in? Are you kidding me? I've spent my life trying to escape those things.

I've even twisted the Word to say the opposite. 

Check out verse 9: - "But He said to me, My grace (My favor and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully]; for My strength and power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) and show themselves most effective in [your] weakness. Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses and infirmities, that the strength and power of Christ (the Messiah) may rest (yes, may pitch a tent over and dwell) upon me!"

I think there is a portion of the church today that is full of false bravado. Sort of like beer muscles.

We have become afraid to express our weakness, and therefore never become strong.

Spiritual anemia.

Paul's words have been hijacked. If Paul's been hijacked then so has Christ. And that ain't good.

Is His grace really sufficient for you today? 

Do you really believe that the weaker you are the more perfected God's strength and power is in you?

And here's the kicker... can you, without fear, reservation, or embarrassment (that's the big one), declare your weakness before others?

It does not come without penalty. The world will look at you as something to devour. Even some in the church will look at your weakness and not the strength of God.

I think we like to pay lip service to the weakness, but when the chips are down we will not be as bold as Paul.

Paul kicked and screamed against his thorn in the flesh, and then he had a little parlay with God.

God essentially told him, "Paul, you're a human weakling, and you always will be. The difference in you is that you have Me. That is where your strength will always be. It's something I do for you and everyone who believes in Me."

How can we get so far from that?

Well, for me I was beginning to revel in God's favor in my life. I realized that I had a boastful attitude about it. I was smug. Oh, maybe it didn't appear that way to others, but in my quiet spirituality I sometimes felt superior over others who didn't appear to have the favor of God upon them.

I was becoming a Pharisee who would look at the wretch pouring his heart out to God in all his sins and be thinking somewhere deep in my spirit that I am glad that I am much more favorable to God. Not consciously, but certainly it was in there somewhere.

Nothing wrong with boasting about God, but make sure you are boasting on Him, and NOT your ability to lay claim to God. There is a difference and the wrong choice can be fatal.

So...yes...I am weak. Anything I am, or ever hope to become, rises and falls on His grace toward me. I am nothing, and He is everything.

My prayer for you today is to not lament over your weaknesses and shortcomings, but to allow God's all sufficient grace to flow over you and fill you. Allow Jesus to pitch His tent over you today! Therein lies your strength and power to overcome and conquer!

Be blessed!

Keepin' it real,

Pastor Kevin <><

www.reallifect.com