The
devil has used the traditional teaching of Paul’s thorn in the flesh to
talk believers out of the blessings of God for years, to try to
convince us to settle for everything from sickness to sin—and to do it
of our own free will.
It is perhaps the most destructive and the
most widely accepted misinterpretation of Scripture that exists in the
Body of Christ today. I’ve gone into countries to preach to people who
hardly had any knowledge of the Word at all and still I have found that
somehow they’d been taught about Paul’s thorn.
And most of them have been taught wrongly.
Tradition
says that God gave Paul the thorn in the flesh. What’s more, tradition
makes the “thorn” into some great mystery. But the Scripture doesn’t say
that at all!
It says
that the thorn in the flesh was a messenger of Satan. Not God—Satan! The
thorn was quite literally just what Paul says it was—a “messenger sent
from Satan.”
You see, everywhere Paul went, he preached the gospel
and every time he preached, he destroyed a little more of Satan’s
kingdom. So, Satan sent a messenger, an evil spirit, to stop him.
When
Paul sought the Lord concerning this thorn (look at 2 Corinthians
12:8-10), God didn’t answer Paul in the negative. God said, “My grace
(or, My favor) is enough. It is sufficient for you. For My strength is
made perfect in your weakness (inability to produce results)”
(W.E. Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words).
In
other words, when Paul didn’t have enough human strength to overcome,
God’s miracle-working power was sufficient for him. It enabled him to be
an overcomer in spite of his weakness.
Don’t allow the devil to
talk you out of your victory. Throw tradition aside and dare to believe
the Word of God. Fight the fight of faith, and just like the Apostle
Paul, you will see the salvation of the Lord!
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