To give you a little window into the things I’m chewing on this week in preparation for our first sermon in 2 Corinthians, check out John Piper’s powerful sermon on the recession here.  I’m grateful for godly men who stir my heart to think about suffering rightly.  The root of our enduring joy in the middle of a difficult season is found in realizing deeply that God is powerfully and lovingly causing these struggles to happen in our lives because he wants us to rely on Him and nothing else.  Not our money, not our job (or our ability to secure one), not our stock portfolio and not our ability to make ends meet.  Right from the beginning of this letter to the Corinthians Paul is pushing us to see the power of weakness - strength being perfected in weakness as we boast in God’s power and not ours.

2 Corinthians 1:9   Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

May God give you the grace to embrace whatever comes this week.  He is for you, and thus nothing else can really be against you.

In His grace,
Pastor David