Year 5, Day 94: 2 Corinthians 12 & 13

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Grace

• Grace: Grace comes to us when we make mistakes and have a failing of character.  Grace comes to us when we have a typical D₂ moment.  Grace comes to us when we need space to recognize a mistake, repent of it, and allow God to redeem it while calling us back into His will.  Grace is partnered by Time and Vision.

Let’s face it.  We all make mistakes.  We all have lapses in judgment.  As much as we may be aware of this fact, I don’t think anyone is as aware of this fact as God.  He knows even better than we do about our mistakes and our lapses in judgment.

Yet here’s the thing.  I have to confess that I am the man I am today largely because of the mistakes I’ve made.  I am the man I am today because of the hardships and trials that I’ve faced.  They weren’t easy.  I’ve often wanted to quit.  While I may like to talk about the successes and the victories, it is actually the hardships, persecutions, and turmoil that has impacted me into being the man that I am today.

This has got a good bit to do with how Paul ends this letter.  Paul himself had a thorn in his side that he begged to be removed from him.  But instead of being able to be perfect, Paul had to rely upon God’s grace in his imperfection.  Likewise, Paul begs and pleads with the Corinthians to recognize, repent of, and move beyond their own mistakes.  He recognizes that making mistakes can teach us about who we are and how to be different.  But ultimately Paul wants them to move beyond their mistakes.

This is a moment of grace.  Paul could have easily dumped them.  He could have easily pushed them aside and only maintained relationship with those who were easy to deal with.  But this is not what happens.  Paul wants to continue with them.  He wants them to repent and move on into a greater place.  That’s a calling of a grace that recognizes that we all make mistakes.  We all have thorns in our sides.  We all have skeletons in our closet.  But God is calling us out of them into greater things.

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