Need some encouragement? Need to boost your faith? Turn to 2 Corinthians! I did!
"This happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead" (2 Corinthians 1.9b). I read this verse a few weeks ago as I was spiritually preparing for our Sunday service. I had asked people to pray for miracles of healing and deliverance. These wourds encouraged me as I remembered that answers to rayer come about not by my strength but by God's power! And, since God raised jesus from the dead it stands to reason that he can answer any prayer we present to him.
I had also read: "Our hope for you is firm" (2 Corinthians 1.7a). What an encouragment as I prayed for the people of my parish. I have a firm hope for them because God raised Jesus and he also raises us!
And finally: "We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us" (2 Corinthians 4.7). Don't panic or get discouraged over the weaknesses of the body, the vagaries of disease, the limitations of the mind, or the processes of aging. All these evidences of our "clay jars" serve to remind us that the power to work miracles is in God and not in us. How freeing when we realize that we can't do so many things. It's up to God! If we will let it, our very bodies' decay testifies to the power of God... Even in their weakness and mortality they point us to our sure and certain hop!
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Another one of my very favorites that I think goes along with yours from 2 Corinthians: "That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (12:10)
Glad the blogger is back in business!! Love you Dad!
Thank you Jenny! It is hard to delight in weaknesses, thouh, isn't it? Let me say that when I felt the weakest you and all our family were my delight! How I love the treasures God has given me in my 6 girls and 2 boys!
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