4 For to be sure, He was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in Him, yet by God’s power we will live with him to serve you.
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20 which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.
7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. 9 Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11 as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
1 When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
11 With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. 12 We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
“It is only through the power of the Holy Spirit that we are able to crucify sin in our lives. Flesh so often fails. Go in His power and strength. And take hold of the life that is truly life.” BHY
"Christ followed the course of weakness to the cross. In the Resurrection the magnitude of that untapped power was displayed. This side of the grave Paul like Jesus followed the path of ‘weakness’ but as in Jesus’ life, a glimmer of God’s power showed through… When Paul came to the end of himself, Christ alone was seen. When he was weak, then Christ, by His strength, could make Paul spiritually strong.” Bible Knowledge Commentary
“It is not through our own power that we can muster up sufficient courage in all of life’s circumstances. Flesh will fail and flee. It is only through the life controlled and empowered by the Holy Spirit that the believer is equipped to stand firm and fully assured in all the will of God while the winds of life blow hard. It is not what we do, it is what He does through us. And the One Who gives the power gets the glory.” BHY
“The true secret to all ministry is spiritual power. It is not man’s genius, or man’s intellect, or man’s energy; but simply the power of the Spirit of the God of the Gospel. ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts (Zech.iv.6) It is well for all ministers (and believers) to bear this ever in mind. It will sustain the heart and give constant freshness to their ministry (and lives). A ministry which flows from abiding dependence upon the Holy Spirit can never become barren. If a man is drawing on his own resources, he will soon run dry. It matters not what his powers may be, or how extensive his reading, or how vast his stores of information; if the Holy Spirit be not the spring and power of his ministry, it must, sooner or later, lose its freshness and its effectiveness. How important then, that all who minister (and live) in the gospel… should lean continually and exclusively on the power of the Holy Spirit. He knows what souls need, and He can supply it. But he must be trusted and used. It will not do to lean partly on self and partly on the Spirit.” C H Macintosh
“When we can do nothing Jesus can do all things; let us enlist His powerful aid upon our side, and all will be well.” Charles Spurgeon
“The goal is Christlikeness. The power to achieve this high calling, is only through the all-achieving indwelling Omnipotence of the Holy Spirit residing in every true believer of sweet Jesus. Our willingness, lame and limping as it so often is, to this superlatively high calling is our meager contribution.” BHY
“It costs much to obtain the power of the Spirit: It costs self-surrender and humiliation and a yielding up of our most precious things to God; it costs the perseverance of long waiting, and the faith of strong trust. But when we are really in that power, we shall find this difference, that whereas before, it was hard for us to do the easiest things, now it is easy for us to do the hard things.” A. J. Gordon
“A primary qualification for serving God with any amount of success, and for doing God’s work well and triumphantly, is a sense of our own weakness. When God’s warrior marches forth to battle, strong in his own might, when he boasts, ‘I know that I shall conquer, my own right arm and my conquering sword shall get unto me the victory’, defeat is not far distant. God will not go forth with that man who marches in his own strength. He who reckoneth on victory thus has reckoned wrongly, for ‘it is not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts’. They who go forth to fight, boasting of their prowess, shall return with their gay banners trailed in the dust, and their armour stained with disgrace. Those who serve God must serve Him in His own way, and in His strength, or He will never accept their service. That which man doth, unaided by divine strength, God can never own. The mere fruits of the earth He casteth away; He will only reap that corn, the seed of which was sown from heaven, watered by grace, and ripened by the sun of divine love. God will empty out all that thou hast before He will put His own into thee; He will first clean out the granaries before He will fill them with the finest of the wheat… Your emptiness is but the preparation for your being filled, and your casting down is but the making ready for your lifting up.” C. H. Spurgeon
“If the Sovereign, Omnipotent, Omniscient God is on our side, as His child, seriously, what do we have to fear? He, Who loves us with an everlasting love, Who ever has His eye upon us, Who never leaves us nor forsakes us, Who not only died to save us but has also given us the Grand Deposit of the precious Holy Spirit to empower us to walk in a manner worthy of our high calling all the way Home – this God, this very God is for us and not against us. No matter what the circumstances of your life may be bellowing out. The world shouts fear while God whispers peace. He will never let the righteous fall and we can trust Him with our lives and with the lives of all we love and hold dear.” BHY
“Against me earth and hell combine, But on my side is power divine; Jesus is all, and He is mine!” Charles H. Spurgeon
“We are never more like Christ than when we walk in the power of the Holy Spirit – clothed in His righteousness – being about the good works which the Father has prepared in advance for us to do.” BHY