STAY IN THE SPIRIT OF "OUR WEAKNESS" HIS STRENGTH

This goes along with the theme "The Year of the Standing or Falling"

I have in the past risk sharing my weaknesses to get a spiritual truth across.  If you have ever read the letters of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, you will see that he boasted in his weakness, in hope that these Corinthians would see that his power wasn’t of him but the Lord.  At one point Paul wondered if he was wrong in doing this.  He thought, maybe he should have came boasting and bragging as the other “super fine apostles”, the heaped up teachers that that church had gathered around them did.  He complain to the Lord about it and has the Lord say to him, “Go ahead, pull out both guns and let them have it.”  Paul does but later feels silly for allowing them to draw him into the competitive game we see going on even today, teacher after teacher  sharing the word of God in the spirit of contention.  Remember our meaning of this word, Contention;” “to put one’s self forward over another.”  Paul backs off, admits his stupidity for getting caught up in this silly game, and says to them that he would not come to them again in such silliness, but would, through his weakness, allow the Lord to come to them in POWER.  He warns them, “You don’t want me to come to you in this way!”  

 

The early beginnings of the “Way” or what we call the church, had seen the Lord manifested in such power that even the secular world saw it, and stayed away; they realized that this was an organization that did manifest the power of God.  I wonder if the world today sees this in the church?  We have got it backwards, we in our self claimed strength, thing we are rich, when in truth we are poor, blind, wretched and naked, needing eye salve that we might see what Paul saw, His strength only comes to us when we are weak.

 

Everything I just shared is “Written” in the letters of Paul.  I just expressed it in Living Words, of my own experience; my coming to weakness, stepping down off a platform of an institution setting, and sharing what the Lord has wanted me to share over the years through my weakness.  Because I have done this, I have had those that read, view what the Lord had wanted to share to all of us through this earthen vessel, called Paul Woodward, I have seen them set aside, esteem less than the teachings of these super fine apostles, still on the stage and on national T.V. or on the web, raising up the things they have shared, casting aside what I know the Lord has want to share from this treasure in me, that the Excellency be of the Lord and not me.  I type this sensing “silliness” as Paul had once felt, in his attempt to promote himself.  So, I will back off, as he did, and say as he had said. “When I come to you again, I will come to you in my weakness, but will allow the Power of God to be manifested through this vessel….”Do you want me to come to you in such power?”  Paul

 

Read  Acts chapter 5….”This is what’s coming!!”  Apply this to, “The year of the Standing or Falling.”