Perfect Strength

But He said to me, My grace (My favor and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully]; for My strength and power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) and show themselves most effective in [your] weakness. Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses and infirmities, that the strength and power of Christ (the Messiah) may rest (yes, may pitch a tent over and dwell) upon me! So for the sake of Christ, I am well pleased and take pleasure in infirmities, insults, hardships, persecutions, perplexities and distresses; for when I am weak in human strength], then am I [truly] strong (able, powerful in divine strength).2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Then the cares and anxieties of the world and distractions of the age, and the pleasure and delight and false glamour and deceitfulness of riches, and the craving and passionate desire for other things creep in and choke and suffocate the Word, and it becomes fruitless. Mark 4:19

The cares of this world: how much money do we have, our jobs, gas prices, inflation, global warming, who wins an election, and the false glamour of envying those who are richer than us all choke out the ability of Jesus to produce fruit through us. The cares of the world make the Word of our Father fruitless. The cares of this world stop love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faith, humility, and self-restraint, all of the things that Jesus uses to make us blameless, Galatians 5:22-23.

Our Father is well aware of this Truth, so what has He done about it? He has made Himself our Gardener and He has made Jesus our Vine, John 15. So anything that will hinder His ability to produce much love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faith, humility and self-restraint through us, will be pruned out by Him.

Any branch in Me that does not bear fruit [that stops bearing] He cuts away (trims off, takes away); and He cleanses and repeatedly prunes every branch that continues to bear fruit, to make it bear more and richer and more excellent fruit. John 15:2

Paul had a thorn in His flesh and He asked our Father three times to remove it and God told Him absolutely not. Our Father told Paul no, the answer to Paul’s prayer was no, for in Paul’s weakness, our Fathers strength was perfected.