In wrapping up his 2nd letter to the Corinthians, in chapters 10 through 12, the Apostle Paul tells the Christians in Corinth about his authority as an Apostle. He recounts all he has done and been through while expending himself completely to bring the Gospel to the various cultures. His motive for doing this is to help them see clearly that the false Apostles, who are trying to lead them astray and lead them away from Paul, are lying to them. Paul hopes they will see that the false Apostles who tell them Paul is not to be trusted or followed are deceitful.
This morning, the thing that struck me while reading this was that Paul, who gave his entire life to teach the Gospel and reach the nations, still suffered immensely. However, despite this suffering, he continued to trust God and follow the Holy Spirit’s leading. I believe that sometimes people think that if their lives aren’t completely blessed or going perfectly, that they’re doing something wrong or aren’t devoted enough to Christ. But look at Paul, so many things went wrong, but God was still loving him, honouring him, and blessing him, and was ever-present in his life. Just because life is a struggle doesn’t mean we aren’t in the right place with God. It could mean this, but it doesn’t necessarily mean this. Neither success nor failure is an accurate indicator of Godliness.
Staying perfectly on the right path
I remembered thinking about this concept before, “that rich or poor, suffering or not, doesn’t mean we aren’t in the right place with God.” I looked back and found that the 1st Chapter of 2nd Corinthians also talked about this idea. Being somewhat of a perfectionist, this concept is very comforting for me. My life doesn’t have to be perfect to be perfectly following Jesus. My job is to stay in the Word, serve in the community, love my neighbour, and trust the Holy Spirit to guide me through each day. No matter what each day looks like on the outside, as long as I’m following that recipe, I’ll stay on the right path perfectly 🙂
