...cont.

Read this last night in John Piper's book Let the Nations Be Glad.

Paul was strong in persecutions because "the power of Christ" rested upon him and was made perfect in him. In other words, Christ’s power was Paul’s only power when his sufferings brought him to the end of his resources and cast him wholly on Jesus. This was God’s purpose in Paul’s thorn, and it is his purpose in all our suffering. God means for us to rely wholly on him. "That was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead" (2 Cor. 1:9). The reason God wants such reliance is because this kind of trust shows his supreme power and love to sustain us when we can’t do anything to sustain ourselves.