With You in Weakness
And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (2 Corinthians 2:1-5) The Lord does not respect what we throw up at Him, but what we lay down before Him. He is not impressed by our talents and gifts, because they are not ours in the first place, but His. Paul understood this, and he refused to minister in a way that left any impression of himself, only that of Jesus. The Lord allowed the type of suffering and shame in Paul’s life that would have left most men in abject discouragement. But he humbled himself under the mighty hand of the Lord, and...