Your Thorn for the Shaming of Satan – EGP Blog post from August 12, 2018

“Jesus says to Paul, ‘Paul, this THORN, this messenger of SATAN is going to make you WEAK, in such a way that if you have ANY power, it will be MINE.’ … What’s going on here isn’t that He grants UNSPEAKABLE revelations, not merely that He’s preventing PRIDE, not merely that He’s shaming SATAN, but He is perfecting the manifestation of the POWER and the GRACE of Christ. … Paul sees it and now he understands, ‘My BODY and my SOUL are being made the theatre for the drama of Satan’s SHAME and Christ’s GLORY.’ …

There are counselors … and pastors today, some who would say to Paul at this point, ‘You’re in DENIAL. Stop putting on that FAKE Christian face. Get REAL. Get ANGRY with God. He’s HURTING you.’ … [It’s only] fake, if you’ve never TASTED it. …

How will you respond? Will you respond like the world, murmuring, complaining, questioning, ACCUSING? Or will you be like Paul? … And if in a few years you conclude that God has not given you ONE thorn, but a CROWN of thorns, will you not pray:

Father, if I might get a GLIMPSE of Heaven, if I might be SAVED from pride, if Satan and his ugliness might be exposed as WORTHLESS in my life, if I might magnify the BEAUTY of Jesus, then Father, would you grant me the MIRACLE to be MOST GLAD and WELL-PLEASED? … It’s a MIRACLE to experience SERIOUS JOY when the THORN or the CROWN OF THORNS is pressing down ON US, or OUR WIVES, or OUR CHILDREN, or OUR PARENTS. It’s a MIRACLE to be GLAD through TEARS. It’s a MIRACLE to be WELL-PLEASED through heaves of SOBBING. It’s a MIRACLE. That’s why we EXIST.”