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Great is my confidence in you; great is my boasting on your behalf. I am filled with comfort; I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction.
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In today’s Scripture the apostle Paul speaks of his confidence, his comfort and his joy in the midst of affliction as he writes to the church, the believers in Corinth. What makes that particularly interesting is the fact that Paul wrote so much to them about where they were missing the mark in his two letters that are now a living part of God’s word. As he said in his letter to Timothy, God’s word is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. {2Tim.3:16}

He had confidence because he himself had been so wrong in the life he had been living, persecuting the church, right up until the time that the Lord grabbed him by the heart on the road to Damascus and changed him from a sinner to a saint. {Acts 9} Paul knew what it meant that God is at work both to will and to work for His good pleasure. {Php.2:13}

Paul was boasting on behalf of the brothers and sisters in Corinth because he had nurtured the habit and the practice of boasting in the Lord. And he had instructed them from the beginning that whoever boasts must boast in the Lord. {1Cor.1:31} He, just as we should do, trusted in and boasted of the potter, not of the clay. {Is.64:8}

The apostle was filled with comfort because of the changes, the spiritual growth, that was taking place regardless of how slowly. If because of Paul’s hard words of correction in love sorrow was there, it was a godly sorrow there to produce repentance leading to the fullness of life. {2Cor.7:8-10} And so, there was joy in the midst of affliction knowing that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God. {Rom.8:28}

Paul was a faithful man whose life in the service of Jesus was all about living and sharing the word of God. And as Jesus Himself said…

“These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” (John 15:11)

THE JOY OF THE LORD IS OUR STRENGTH