Where does your power lie?

1 Cor. 2:1-5

    I often think of Paul as almost being super human. In 2 Cor. 11:22-29 he writes to them about some of the struggles he has faced like, imprisonment, beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, floggings, and many more persecutions and he never lost the faith and stayed faithful (2 Tim. 4:7). But, he had already written to them about his weakness and was with them through it. In 1 Cor. 2:1-5 he tells them that he came to them knowing nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. He goes one to state “I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.” Often we, and by we I mean ESPECIALLY ME, think that we have to be the strongest person emotionally and spiritually and that showing that we struggle with something is failure. That’s not true. The power is in the Gospel and not in man (Rom. 1:16). Continuing in 1 Cor. 2:6ff Paul tells them that wisdom too comes from God and it takes a certain amount of wisdom to trust in Jesus Christ and His Gospel and not in the power of the preacher. We are all humans who deal with various different aliments, even Paul was given a thorn in the flesh to stay humble (2 Cor. 12:7). Pray for each other and put your faith in the Gospel of Christ because the that is where the saving power lies, not in the messenger who brings it. 


In His service,
Steven Hugley