August 10.
Purpose For The Pressure

2 Corinthians 12:7

And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.

A messenger of Satan was given to Paul to buffet him. The word buffet means to hit with the fist. It means taking abusive treatment. He said, “Look, I really had a war in my private life. And I had a war for several reasons. First, I was under pressure.” Pressure can create catastrophes. Lots of folk are over weight because they’re under pressure. Some of you say that you smoke because of pressure. You can’t sleep because of pressure. Paul had pressure.

In spite of the pressure, God had a purpose for the thorn. He wanted to keep Paul’s feet on the ground. God knows all of his children. As a matter of fact, God knows us better than we know us. Most of us think we can handle being rich. You say, “If I can’t handle it, I’d love to try.” But God knows if we get a little too much too soon, our feet would leave the ground. And God would rather have us talk to him on a daily basis than to just hear from us at the end of the year.

I have been preaching for twenty-seven years. I have been studying the Bible for the last thirty-five years and I try to spend forty hours in preparing each sermon. I don’t want to come on Sunday and you leave empty, because I’ve been in places where I’ve heard messages that meant nothing. If I could work forty hours a week on a job for myself, I can spend that much time studying the word for God’s people. And even at that when I come to the pulpit, the Lord will do something over and over again to keep my feet on the ground. More than once I have studied forty hours for a sermon just to have the Lord take it as I walked to the pulpit. He said, “You will have to rely on me.”