Steven Furtick Sermon Why Did God Leave Me With This Weakness: Why would a God who has enough power to take down a giant with a rock leave something as small as a thorn? Why would a God who said you could have mustard seed faith and move something as big as a mountain? Why would that God leave something as small as a thorn in the life of someone as important as Paul?
It begs a better question. Why would God allow you, season after season, to sing about Goliaths, to sing about mountains, to pray about them, to ask about them, to strategise, “Maybe it’ll be different this time.” Paul said, “I asked three times now. I launched three separate campaigns that I waged with heaven to see if God would take this away so I could be more effective for him.
This was something I wanted, and it was something I thought God would want.” We don’t get to know if it was physical or if it was mental or if the great apostle struggled with depression. See, we probably couldn’t handle that. Then we wouldn’t listen to him if he said, “Rejoice in the Lord always,” because we’d be like, “Oh, you’re a hypocrite. Paul, you’re cancelled. You can’t struggle with that and
Preach to me.” We like to cut people out when they don’t live up to our exact standards. “But all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Don’t get too close to her. You might get stuck. She has thorns. Pastor Steven Furtick tells us that life will give you an ample supply of thorns. You don’t have to ask for one.
The apostle Paul mentions a lot of trials and thorns that came his way He mentions hardships, He mentions insults, He mentions persecutions, He mentions difficulties, He mentions weaknesses. He mentions them categorically and metaphorically, Life will give you enough of those, you don’t have to go looking for them.
Life gives us enough thorns, we have enough insecurities, we deal with enough in our head, we have enough movies to make us miserable the rest of our lives. If it’s not hard enough to be a teenager with the fear of missing out, you can go and find proof, you’re missing out of all of the people who didn’t invite you and watch the things they’re doing.
Paul said, “A thorn was given to me.” And he says a strange phrase. He says, “It was a messenger of Satan.” The word in Greek for messenger is aggelos. What does that sound like? Angel, this is the same word that is used for messenger. He said, “Because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn, a messenger of Satan” Aggelos.
The apostle Paul said he was given “An angel of Satan to torment him, he never prayed for Satan to give him anything in his life, Paul didn’t like it. He said the first time he got hit with that thing he said, “Return to sender,” and he did it three times.
Sometimes that works and God helps you through it. “But in this case,” Paul said, “I had to see that it was given to me even though the Enemy delivered it. He said it came from an angel. An angel of Satan gave me a gift from God.
God is using this situation to keep us dependent on him. These thorns are gifts that make you realise how much I need God. So we must not be discouraged at any point in time we face these thorns.