When Strong Is Wrong Today's Three-minute Bible Study Print, Study and Apply Title: When Strong Is Wrong ----------------------- Date: 05/28/1999 Keywords: "grace" "strength" "weak" Welcome to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand strong in the face of sexual temptation. Passage: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10* 7. To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Questions 1. We're never told what Paul's thorn was, but it was something agonizing enough that Paul pleaded three times with God to take it away. Why did God not remove it?   2. The apostle Paul is generally thought of as a pillar of strength and determination. Did Paul delight in personal strength?   Practical help The world tells you if you want to beat a bad habit (like viewing Web porn) you have to be strong and determined. So you try to be strong, and you're determined to beat it, but the habit beats you. Now what? The world says you weren't really strong, so be stronger. The apostle Paul tells you strong is wrong if you think your own strength will beat it. In verse 10, Paul says he delights in his weaknesses and difficulties because when he is weak then he is strong. The strength he can rely on is the strength bestowed by the grace of Christ. When Paul saw that his own strength wasn't going to cut it (basically admitting he was too weak), it became obvious that the only way he could really be strong is by Christ's strength on his behalf. If you want some real strength to battle a porn habit, then try being weak — weak enough to see you need the strength of Jesus. If you've never trusted in the strength of Jesus, then click here. eXXit homepage Index of three-minute studies Copyright 1999 by eXXit *Scriptures are from The Holy Bible: New International Version, © copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved.