Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say. To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassing great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.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. 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.
We are not referring to the born again spirit in man, but the one that doesn't get born again.We are not referring to the heavenly wisdom that fills a transformed mind, but the one that doesn't get transformed. We are not referring to the power of the incorruptible body that is being constructed secretly at God's right hand but the corrupted one. All these will fail altogether. They may seem attractive as a rose with all it's petals now, but it will fade and fail you, if you do nothing more than just admiring it or get it admired by someone. There is more to that than just admiration. You can have a born again spirit and if you do not occupy or fill it with the formation of the divine nature of Christ in it, what use will that spirit be. In fact, it will attract someone else to fill that spirit, someone whom you wouldn't want to be filled with. If you don't work out what you have been given with, someone else will use you as their work-out 'gym'. They will become stronger in you because you were simply careless with what you have been entrusted with-the born again spirit with your Helper. The human spirit, wisdom and power has long been pronounced as useless and ready for annihilation. If you are still expecting it to produce something good and lasting, you are the most deceived person. It can't! It won't, no matter how hard you try it! You must be born again! Your sinful and hostile mind must be transformed into the mind of Christ, only then, will there be Christconformation of your eternal body that is being constructed at Christ's right hand now. You must obey everything He had commanded us for that to occur fully. There are no known short-cuts for that. You claim you have come into the light, do you live by the truth daily. The Truth is in everything that Christ had commanded. Are you living by that? Do you obey everything He has commanded you? You should!
John 3:12-21
I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven--the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."
