2 Corinthians 12:7-10 [Epiphany 6]
Pastor Ron Koehler
Grace—Tucson
February 16, 2025
One of the greatest struggles we go through is suffering with something long-term. It could be a prolonged illness or battle with a condition or a disease, a severe allergy that could lead to death, or fighting cancer. It could be the pain of something that happened in our childhood and has a lingering, life-long effect. It could be a sinful habit that we can’t shake. Or maybe it is the consequence of something we did that brought harm to us or to others and still causes hurt and regret. What do we do with a burden like that which won’t entirely go away? We wish it wasn’t so. We’d like it to be different, to have never happened. Are we simply left to suffer? Is there no answer? How does this kind of thing fit with faith in God and life as his child? If you would like a God-pleasing way to look at this kind of thing…if you would like an answer, some kind of relief…if you would like an example to follow…then consider the Apostle Paul and what he wrote to Christian friends about his issue. He personally dealt with this kind of thing and he did it with faith. He reached out to God and found several blessings that came from what he saw as a curse. What Paul found out was that… God’s Grace is Enough 1. It Provides Blessings 2. It Prevents Pride 3. It Proclaims God’s Power 4. It Produces Trust It Provides Blessings Just before this, Paul had written about the incredible visions God gave to him. He doesn’t give a lot of detail, but they were so spectacular that he wasn’t even sure if they were visions or if God had actually taken him physically and showed him heaven! At any rate, it was the kind of experience that could turn a privileged person to pride. It is pretty clear as we read about the life of Paul, that he was not deserving of this kind of love and attention from God. He was a man who formerly persecuted Christians and tried to stamp out the Christian church by killing people who followed Jesus. Everyone would agree that a guy like that should have been stamped out by God—crushed like the cockroach of person he was under the divine shoe of the almighty God! But that’s not what God did. Sudden blindness to get Paul’s attention… baptism… instruction by Christ himself… and he was literally a new man! His terrible sins forgiven, God turned him loose by God to spread the saving gospel to many people in many lands. Given his past, Paul is a shining example of the blessings of God’s grace in a person’s life, isn’t he?