Why Didn't the Lord Remove Paul's Thorn in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9?

      Here’s my favorite definition of grace:  "Grace is the Triune God doing everything, being everything, and giving everything to us in the way of enjoyment."   This must be the grace God wanted Paul to know in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9: 

"...there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan,...Concerning this I entreated the Lord three times that it might depart from me.  And He has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness...."   

     During the last two weeks I heard two different messages on grace, and then a few days ago I read the Life-Study that covers 2 Corinthians 12 about Paul's thorn.  The first message I heard was from a conference that  was posted online.  What helped me was hearing that it's up to God if the thorn will be removed or not. The big question is if He doesn't remove it, then what will we do?  Will this harden our heart, or will this cause us to pray, Lord, I need Your grace today. I've heard this message a few times, and I would like to share the link to it because it was so good:  Message 4 – Experiencing and Enjoying the Processed and Consummated Triune God as Grace for the Building Up of the Body of Christ 

  Then I heard  a message through our webcast subscription on Living Stream Ministry’s website. Guess what?  It was on the same subject!  This  brother spoke on Paul's asking the Lord three times to remove the thorn.  Here's a part that spoke volumes to me: 

... He wasn’t a hero, he prayed for the thorn to be removed, no answer. He prayed again for the thorn to be removed, silence.  And according to the principle of praying three times, he prayed again and then the answer came, "My grace is sufficient for you"-- that’s the discovery, "for you." ...The pain is too piercing, this is beyond what you can bear as a human, your only recourse is to contact God, and He’s silent.  But eventually He breaks the silence and says, "My grace is sufficient for you."  

And here's the excerpt from the  Life Study of 2 Corinthians Chapter 55, page 488 on this verse that soothed my aching heart:

“Sufferings and trials are often the Lord’s ordination for us, that we may experience Christ as grace and power.  For this reason, the Lord would not remove the thorn from the apostle as he entreated...The Lord answered Paul’s prayer, but not according to Paul’s way....The Lord seemed to say, '…Paul, My grace is sufficient for you.  Don’t ask Me to take away the thorn….
  But I shall grace you and support you so that you may be able to bear this suffering.  Also, in your experience, My grace will become power made perfect in weakness.  The thorn exposes your weakness.  Without it, you would not realize how weak you are.  Now you need Me to be your grace.  In your experience,  My grace will become power tabernacling over you’” (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of 2 Corinthians. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1982, Print). 

I realized after reading this message that the Lord had also given me these three messages to remind me that His grace IS sufficient for me!!  And I needed that word; and it has come back to comfort me over and over since then. 

Here's a link so you can listen to any of the programs on the Life Study of the Bible with Witness Lee that are on the book of  1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians.

Other Blogs on the Life Study of 1 & 2 Corinthians:

1 Corinthians:
How did the Lord Solve the Problem Among the Believers in 1 Corinthians?
The Fellowship of the Believers in 1 Corinthians 1:9
What is God's Farm in 1 Corinthians 3:9?
What is God's Building in 1 Corinthians 3:9?
From the Life-Study of 1 Corinthians - How Do the Believers Build With Gold, Silver, & Precious Stones in 1 Corinthians 3:12?
Seeing the Revelation of the Body in 1 Corinthians 12
How Did the Early Believers Meet in 1 Corinthians 14:26?

2 Corinthians:

How Can You Be Like A Letter of Christ in 2 Corinthians 3:2?

What are the Sufferings For in 2 Corinthians 4:7-15?
How Does Transformation Happen in 2 Corinthians 3:18?
From the Life-Study of 2 Corinthians - Did You Know Pressures Cause Renewing in 2 Corinthians 4:16?
Why Do Believers Need to Be Reconciled in 2 Corinthians 5:18?
Giving in 2 Corinthians 8 & 9
Why Didn't the Lord Remove Paul's Thorn in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9?

Giving in 2 Corinthians 8 & 9

      You can never out give God.   His heart is so much bigger than our own.  I feel that God encourages us to give because it’s good for us.  The Bible is full of encouraging verses and accounts of giving.  I really like this verse in Malachi--when God’s house was neglected, He implored the Israelites to give for the rebuilding, and He promised them: 

Bring the whole tithe to the storehouse that there may be food in My house; and prove Me, if you will, by this, says Jehovah of hosts, whether I will open to you the windows of heaven and pour out blessing for you until there is no room for it.  Malachi 3:10

       But what if you’re struggling to make ends meet?  Do you still give?  Witness Lee points out in Chapter 49 of the Life Study of 2 Corinthians that this is the very backdrop upon which Paul wrote 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9.   He mentions that it might have appeared risky for Paul to encourage the poor Macedonian believers to give to those in Judea.  What if something worse happened to them?  But Paul knew God, and He knew His word.  

      To help the Corinthians give out of their own poverty, Paul uses in chapter 8 the illustration of the Israelites gathering manna to remind them of the miraculous ways that God uses to take care of the needs of His children.   2 Corinthians  says, As it is written [in Exodus 16:18], He who gathered much had no excess, and he who gathered little had no lack.  

   And then in 9:6 he uses the illustration of farmers sowing seeds to help the believers see that even our financial harvest always matches our sowing.  “He who sows sparingly, sparingly also shall reap, and he who sows with blessings, with blessings also shall reap.”  In this excerpt on page 422 he shares what sowing with blessings means:

    “What about the sowing of seed?  According to chapter 9, our giving equals not only our gathering as in chapter 8, but also equals sowing…But what farmer when he sows seed in his field, has the thought of sowing for others?  Surely most farmers have the concept of sowing for themselves.  This kind of sowing however, is not with blessings.  To sow with blessings is to give to others…As children of God, we all must learn to give.  To give is to gather.  How much manna we can gather depends on how much we give (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of 2 Corinthians. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1982, Print).

Since all that we have comes from God’s loving hand, we can give with the assurance that God will continue to care for us.  Here's one of the songs produced by the New York City Young People called  The Goal of the Gospel.This song was inspired by the gospel account of Mary who poured out her alabaster jar of ointment on the Lord.  his was costly ointment that took almost a year to buy.  Surely the Lord is worthy of our giving  all that we are and have to Him for His purpose.

Here's a link so you can listen to any of the programs on the Life Study of the Bible with Witness Lee that are on the book of  1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians.

Other Blogs on the Life Study of 1 & 2 Corinthians:

1 Corinthians:
How did the Lord Solve the Problem Among the Believers in 1 Corinthians?
The Fellowship of the Believers in 1 Corinthians 1:9
What is God's Farm in 1 Corinthians 3:9?
Do You Know What is God Building in 1 Corinthians 3:9?
From the Life-Study of 1 Corinthians - How Do the Believers Build With Gold, Silver, & Precious Stones in 1 Corinthians 3:12?
Seeing the Revelation of the Body in 1 Corinthians 12
How Did the Early Believers Meet in 1 Corinthians 14:26?

2 Corinthians:

How Can You Be Like A Letter of Christ in 2 Corinthians 3:2?
What are the Sufferings For in 2 Corinthians 4:7-15?
How Does Transformation Happen in 2 Corinthians 3:18?
From the Life-Study of 2 Corinthians - Did You Know Pressures Cause Renewing in 2 Corinthians 4:16
Why Do Believers Need to Be Reconciled in 2 Corinthians 5:18?
Giving in 2 Corinthians 8 & 9
Why Didn't the Lord Remove Paul's Thorn in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9?

Why Do Believers Need to be Reconciled in 2 Corinthians 5:18?

     In 2 Corinthians 5:18 Paul uses an unusual expression. Perhaps this phrase has never caught your attention before:   "But all things are out from God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation;" In Chapter 37 of the Life Study of 2 Corinthians Witness Lee begins to delve into this chapter. He reminds his readers that 2 Corinthians was not written to sinners but to believers. 



My granddaughter smelling my lilacs.

 So why did these believers need reconciling?  I know I would not have gotten this point at all without the help of these Life-Study messages. To help us understand this, brother Lee makes an amazing correlation between the two veils in the Old Testament tabernacle  (Exodus 26:31-36) to the two steps of a believer's reconciliation Paul presents in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20.  

   He shares that in order for the priests to enter into the Holy Place, they had to pass
 through a screen.   And then in order to enter into the Holy of Holies, they had to pass through a veil.  I liked this clear explanation on the two steps of reconciliation on pages 323-324:

In verse 19 it is the world that is to be reconciled to God.  In verse 20 it is the believers, those who have already been reconciled to God, who are to be reconciled to Him further.  This clearly indicates that there are two steps for people to be fully reconciled to God.  The first step is as sinners to be reconciled to God from sin...The second step is as believers living in the natural life to be reconciled to God from the flesh...The Corinthian believers had been reconciled to God, for they had passed through the first veil and had entered into the Holy Place. But they still lived in the flesh.  They needed to pass the second veil, which has already been rent (Matt. 27:51; Heb. 10:20), to enter into the Holy of Holies to live with God in their spirit (1 Cor. 6:17).  The goal of this Epistle is to bring them here that they may be persons in the spirit (1 Cor. 2:14), in the Holy of Holies.  This is what the apostle means by saying, "Be reconciled to God" (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of 2 Corinthians. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1982, Print).

         I remember hearing brother Lee many times say that because Christ lives within us, our spirit is now the Holy of

Holies.  So we just need to get there.  I like what he said about Paul's goal in writing 2 Corinthians was to bring these believers into the Holy of Holies. I also saw that this matter of being reconciled gives another view of what the consuming pressures are doing in our lives--they are actually being used to bring us into the Holy of Holies to have amazing, direct contact with God Himself!

Here's a link so you can listen to any of the programs on the Life Study of the Bible with Witness Lee that are on the book of  1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians.

Other Blogs on the Life Study of 1 & 2 Corinthians:

1 Corinthians:
How did the Lord Solve the Problem Among the Believers in 1 Corinthians?
The Fellowship of the Believers in 1 Corinthians 1:9
What is God's Farm in 1 Corinthians 3:9?
What is God's Building in 1 Corinthians 3:9?
From the Life-Study of 1 Corinthians - How Do the Believers Build With Gold, Silver, & Precious Stones in 1 Corinthians 3:12?
Seeing the Revelation of the Body in 1 Corinthians 12
How Did the Early Believers Meet in 1 Corinthians 14:26?

2 Corinthians:

How Can You Be Like A Letter of Christ in 2 Corinthians 3:2?

What are the Sufferings For in 2 Corinthians 4:7-15?
How Does Transformation Happen in 2 Corinthians 3:18?
From the Life-Study of 2 Corinthians - Did You Know Pressures Cause Renewing in 2 Corinthians 4:16?
Why Do Believers Need to Be Reconciled in 2 Corinthians 5:18?
Giving in 2 Corinthians 8 & 9
Why Didn't the Lord Remove Paul's Thorn in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9?

From the Life-Study of 2 Corinthians - Did You Know Pressures Cause Renewing in 2 Corinthians 4:16?

     It's not always easy to be honest about our experiences.  In chapter 4 of 2 Corinthians Paul tells it like it is, and I find that very encouraging!   But then he ends this section in verse 16 with such an incredible proclamation of not losing heart because all of these pressures are causing us to be renewed. So many times these verses have been like a rope I've held onto! 

  Wherefore we do not lose heart, but if indeed our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is being renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4:16

 In chapter 32 of the Life-Study of 2 Corinthians  Witness Lee uses on pages 286-287 trees losing their leaves in autumn to illustrate this spiritual experience:  

“Also from experience I can testify that something issues from this decaying, this consuming—the renewing of the inward man. Yes, our outward man is decaying, but our inward man is being renewed.  If we had a choice, we would of course choose the renewing and avoid the decaying...This renewing does not merely involve the addition of the divine element into our being.  Our old nature, the outward man, is actually taken away so that the life within us, that is, the Spirit of  life, may have the opportunity to develop" (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of 2 Corinthians. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1982, Print).   

    I love it when spring returns again.  The trees that have been barren for so long are full of new buds just waiting to burst open.  What a marvelous picture God has given us in nature of what He is doing within the believers who spend time with Him each day no matter what's going on!!!

Here's a song I like to listen to when I'm struggling called We Do Not Lose Heart that puts these verses in 2 Corinthians 4 to music.

Here's a link so you can listen to any of the programs on the Life Study of the Bible with Witness Lee that are on the book of  1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians.

Other Blogs on the Life Study of 1 & 2 Corinthians:

1 Corinthians:
How did the Lord Solve the Problem Among the Believers in 1 Corinthians?
The Fellowship of the Believers in 1 Corinthians 1:9
What is God's Farm in 1 Corinthians 3:9?
What is God's Building in 1 Corinthians 3:9?
From the Life-Study of 1 Corinthians - How Do the Believers Build With Gold, Silver, & Precious Stones in 1 Corinthians 3:12?
Seeing the Revelation of the Body in 1 Corinthians 12
How Did the Early Believers Meet in 1 Corinthians 14:26?

2 Corinthians:

How Can You Be Like A Letter of Christ in 2 Corinthians 3:2?

What are the Sufferings For in 2 Corinthians 4:7-15?
How Does Transformation Happen in 2 Corinthians 3:18?
From the Life-Study of 2 Corinthians - Did You Know Pressures Cause Renewing in 2 Corinthians 4:16?
Why Do Believers Need to Be Reconciled in 2 Corinthians 5:18?
Giving in 2 Corinthians 8 & 9
Why Didn't the Lord Remove Paul's Thorn in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9?

What Causes the Spiritual Transformation in 2 Corinthians 3:18?

       God seems to put us into circumstances we can’t get out of.  And it’s often in these very circumstances that we’re pressed more to behold God’s face. This week I found myself in another 2 Corinthians 4:8 experience of being pressed on every side.  Anyway I’ve liked 2 Corinthians 3:18 for a long time, and the chapters I was reading this week in the Life-Study of 2 Corinthians were on it. 

     What I like the most in this verse is the process that’s implied here—“from glory to glory.”  Witness Lee shares here that every day the Lord is calling us to spend face time with Him so that the glory can increase in us.  My 4-year-old granddaughter likes to tell others that she wants to spend some alone time with them.  I’ve really been seeing more this past year that God needs our cooperation, and that means we need to spend our own alone time with God.  

     And for this to occur we need to need to turn our heart, we need to open our mouths to pray, and when we get past all the barriers (Paul calls them veils), we find ourselves in the process that 2 Corinthians 3:18 talks about. And God knows that.  I enjoyed reading the summary that Witness Lee gives on this verse on pages 213-214 at the end of chapter 24:

Now that we have the Spirit indwelling our spirit, we need to exercise more and more by praying, reading the word, and calling on the name of the Lord.  The more we exercise our spirit with an unveiled face, the more we shall behold the Lord.  As we are gazing on Him, we shall also reflect Him.  While we are beholding and reflecting Him in this way, His element, His essence will be added into our being.  This new element will replace and discharge the element of our old, natural life.  Then we shall experience transformation, a metabolic change.  We shall be transformed into the Lord’s image (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of 2 Corinthians. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1982, Print). 

    Did you ever wonder what’s the Spirit’s ultimate goal in transforming us?  In chapter 21 Witness Lee  connects 2 Corinthians 3:18  to Revelation 22:17 where you have not only  the Spirit mentioned but also the bride:  “The Spirit and the bride say, Come.”  He also said that every day we need to  stay in this process of transformation UNTIL we become this bride.

Here's a beautiful song that describes what happens when we look at the Lord.  It's written by a Howard Higashi, a believer whose songs evidence how much he loved the Lord. It's called Just One Touch. 

Blog Update 5/6/14:  Here's another song that goes along with this verse, it's called Whatever May Happen.  It's about what happens when we look at the Lord. This song is from the CD The Comfort Abounds, and you can purchase this beautiful collection of songs by going to  www.nycypcd.org

Here's a link so you can listen to any of the programs on the Life Study of the Bible with Witness Lee that are on the book of  1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians.

Other Blogs on the Life Study of 1 & 2 Corinthians:

1 Corinthians:
How did the Lord Solve the Problem Among the Believers in 1 Corinthians?
The Fellowship of the Believers in 1 Corinthians 1:9
What is God's Farm in 1 Corinthians 3:9?
What is God's Building in 1 Corinthians 3:9?
From the Life-Study of 1 Corinthians - How Do the Believers Build With Gold, Silver, & Precious Stones in 1 Corinthians 3:12?
Seeing the Revelation of the Body in 1 Corinthians 12
How Did the Early Believers Meet in 1 Corinthians 14:26?

2 Corinthians:

How Can You Be Like A Letter of Christ in 2 Corinthians 3:2?

What are the Sufferings For in 2 Corinthians 4:7-15?

How Does Transformation Happen in 2 Corinthians 3:18?

From the Life-Study of 2 Corinthians - Did You Know Pressures Cause Renewing in 2 Corinthians 4:16?

Why Do Believers Need to Be Reconciled in 2 Corinthians 5:18?

Giving in 2 Corinthians 8 & 9

Why Didn't the Lord Remove Paul's Thorn in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9?

What are Sufferings For in 2 Corinthians 4:7-15?

     Who has never felt "pressed on every side but not constricted," or "cast down but not destroyed" (2 Corinthians 4:8, 9b)?  I needed this Life Study of 2 Corinthians message this week because I found myself right in the middle of this chapter. 

    Even though it's a difficult topic to talk about, I found Witness Lee's sharing in this chapter very heart warming.  He uses Paul's account of being pressed, constricted, persecuted, cast down, and bearing about in his body the putting to death of Jesus to underscore that it was in these experiences that Paul got  constituted to become a minister of the New Covenant.  I liked this particular part on page 96:

Paul was a person constituted of God....Therefore Paul's ministry was his being.  What he preached and taught was what he was.  He ministered his very being to others.  As Paul ministered in this way, Christ was imparted into others, for Paul and Christ had become one.   Paul was one with Christ and had been constituted of Christ.  His ministry was the ministry of the Christ who had been constituted into his being. Without this kind of ministry, there is no way to have the church adequately built up or to have the bride properly adorned (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of 2 Corinthians. Anaheim: Living  Stream Ministry, 1982, Print). 

It was encouraging to see that God is using all kinds of pressing situations to constitute us so that when we gather together with other believers we have something real of Christ to minister to others.  The song called The Comfort Abounds  touches my heart because when we're pressed, we get to know "the Father of compassion and God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our affliction...."  2 Corinthians 1:3b-4a. 

Here's a link so you can listen to any of the programs on the Life Study of the Bible with Witness Lee that are on the book of  1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians.

Other Blogs on the Life Study of 1 & 2 Corinthians:

1 Corinthians:
How did the Lord Solve the Problem Among the Believers in 1 Corinthians?
The Fellowship of the Believers in 1 Corinthians 1:9
What is God's Farm in 1 Corinthians 3:9?
What is God's Building in 1 Corinthians 3:9?
From the Life-Study of 1 Corinthians - How Do the Believers Build With Gold, Silver, & Precious Stones in 1 Corinthians 3:12?
Seeing the Revelation of the Body in 1 Corinthians 12
How Did the Early Believers Meet in 1 Corinthians 14:26?

2 Corinthians:

How Can You Be Like A Letter of Christ in 2 Corinthians 3:2?

What are the Sufferings For in 2 Corinthians 4:7-15?
How Does Transformation Happen in 2 Corinthians 3:18?
From the Life-Study of 2 Corinthians - Did You Know Pressures Cause Renewing in 2 Corinthians 4:16?
Why Do Believers Need to Be Reconciled in 2 Corinthians 5:18?
Giving in 2 Corinthians 8 & 9
Why Didn't the Lord Remove Paul's Thorn in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9?

How Can You Be A Letter of Christ Like in 2 Corinthians 3:2?

     
I like to write. For ten years I wrote Bible day camp plays and skits, and I also like to write short stories on character traits.   Anyway this week I read a Life-Study  that reminded me that Christ also likes to write--but He writes on our hearts (2 Cor. 3:3).  In  chapter 6 of the Life-Study of 2 Corinthians,  and on page 49 Witness Lee expounds this passage.  Here's what I liked:

In verse 3 Paul says that the letter of Christ is inscribed "not in tablets of stone, but in fleshy tablets of the heart." Our heart, as the composition of our conscience (the leading part of our spirit), mind, emotion, and will, is the tablet upon which the living letters of Christ are written with the living Spirit of God. This implies that Christ is written into every part of our inner being with the Spirit of the living God to make us His living letters, that He may be expressed in us, and read by others in us (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of 2 Corinthians. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1982, Print).

    After saying this he points out on the next page that "Christ making His home in our heart [Ephesians 3:16] equals the writing of Christ throughout our inner being" (Page 50). What touched me in these messages is that Christ writes on us through the ministers of the New Testament.  So that made me think that whenever I hear a message or read some spiritual writing, this is how I am allowing Christ to write more of Himself into my heart. Lord, do this more today in all of us!   

Here's a link so you can listen to any of the programs on the Life Study of the Bible with Witness Lee that are on the book of  1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians.

Other Blogs on the Life Study of 1 & 2 Corinthians:

1 Corinthians:
How did the Lord Solve the Problem Among the Believers in 1 Corinthians?
The Fellowship of the Believers in 1 Corinthians 1:9
What is God's Farm in 1 Corinthians 3:9?
Do You Know What is God Building in 1 Corinthians 3:9?
From the Life-Study of 1 Corinthians - How Do the Believers Build With Gold, Silver, & Precious Stones in 1 Corinthians 3:12?
Seeing the Revelation of the Body in 1 Corinthians 12
How Did the Early Believers Meet in 1 Corinthians 14:26?

2 Corinthians:

How Can You Be Like A Letter of Christ in 2 Corinthians 3:2?
What are the Sufferings For in 2 Corinthians 4:7-15?
How Does Transformation Happen in 2 Corinthians 3:18?
From the Life-Study of 2 Corinthians - Did You Know Pressures Cause Renewing in 2 Corinthians 4:16
Why Do Believers Need to Be Reconciled in 2 Corinthians 5:18?
Giving in 2 Corinthians 8 & 9
Why Didn't the Lord Remove Paul's Thorn in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9?