"In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we STOPPED relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raised the dead." - 2 Corinthians 1:9
How many of us have experienced such a time as this, that we finally gave up on our own strength and effort, and we finally finally trust God to do whatever He pleases...
In this verse, we knew that the Apostle Paul and others, they have had lots of hardship and the Apostle Paul was so perplexed on the inside, for he cares not only himself but the church. He suffered physical and emotional pain both for the unsaved and the saved.
And there were times that He felt like giving up on hope. He confessed it in verse 9. Does it sound like some of us at times? We felt like the situation is all hopeless, no turning points...we felt like all our efforts are wasted...( I feel like this at times too)
But as a result of that frustration and hopelessness.....they finally STOPPED trusting themselves with the task, they finally turned their eyes from themselves to the Almighty GOD for help. So that's an ultimate good thing to see....that we can totally relying on God instead of ourselves. When we truly rely on God, the Glory will not be ours to claim but GOD himself will claim it all. That's why I think God loves us to rely on Himself, because His burden is light most of all, and also He knew how easy for us to be puffed up with our knowledge and understanding. Once we knew something, we love to talk about it and pride ourselves in it, it's a very humanly speaking...we all do that at times....though we might sound so humble, God knows that we still have that selfish tendency in us that we can be puff up at any times without knowing it.
See when we truly rely on Him, we cannot boast about ourselves...we have no reasons to boast ....all we can say is that.....God is faithful, God has been good, God is able, God is awesome. So all these praises will belong to Him alone. And during the bad situation, we have the opportunity to really learn more about God by relying on His strength, relying on His wisdom and mercy. Without relying on God, our experience in Him will be few....that's why some peoples lost the joy in following God, perhaps all their way of following God is just reading the Bible, but they have not yet come to a point where they TASTED his goodness. When one tastes His goodness, they know how it is like to really relying on God totally.
Let us have a solid experience of God in our private every day life...not just reading the Bible and get the knowledge from it, but to truly experience the goodness of our God. Let us RELY ON HIM and Let Him be praised and glorified through our times of trials....Let us RELY ON HIM, let us LEARN from Him. Let us fix our gaze on Him, not on ourselves, what we can do or what we cannot do. Let us draw the strength and wisdom from Him today. Amen.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be! TRUST JESUS NOW
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