Matters of Faith: Rev. Dr. J Loren Russell: "Let's Make Lemonade!" - Article.

Let’s Make Lemonade!

By: Reverend J. Loren Russell

2 Corinthians 12:10 (NLT)

“That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults,

hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I

am weak, then I am strong.”

I could go through the alphabet, almost letter-by-letter, and site

weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that affects

both believers and non-believers alike. The universal question is ‘what

do you do when you are going through any of these challenges of life?’

The challenges of life are unavoidable. It does not matter if you are rich

or poor, educated or uneducated, a believer in God in whatever faith you

prefer or not at all. Everyone will have weaknesses, insults, hardships,

persecutions, and troubles. For the sake of this article, I will call them

lemons. We all have lemons in our lives.

The Apostle Paul says that all his lemons came for the cause of Christ.

The more he shared the gospel, the more bitter his lemons became. They

were so bitter that they rendered him weak. But his personal relationship

with Christ gave him the strength to turn his lemons into lemonade. For

Paul, his weaknesses made him strong.

Is it anger, bad habits, child abuse, death, envy, fear, guilt,

homosexuality, incest, judgement, loneliness, marriage, the new age

movement, obedience, patience, relationships, sexual immorality,

temptations, wars or rumors of wars? What is it that makes you weak,

that insults you, that distresses you, that torments you, that makes life

difficult for you? Have you been able to identify the lemons in your life?

Let me suggest that you too can not only tolerate but can overcome all

the various challenges in your life and make your lemons into lemonade.

In the three verses preceding our focal verse for this article, Paul shared,

“So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a

messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.

Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he

said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness. So

now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ

can work through me” (vv.7-9).

Whatever lemons you have in your life, the ability to turn them into

lemonade is in the relationship you have with the heavenly father

through Christ. His power works best in your weakness. Let’s make

lemonade.

Be Blessed!

Rev. J. Loren Russell is an associate minister at Goodwill Baptist Church and is the spiritual

leader of the Evangelical Church of God, both in the Bronx, President/CEO of The JLR

Company/J Loren R Consulting, LLC for Church Financial & Strategic Consulting (718-328-

8096) and is the producer and host of “Matters of Faith – The Radio Show” on Monday nights

from 8:00 – 10:00 PM on The Matters of Faith YouTube channel. Be sure to ‘Friend, Like, and

Share.” Email us at mattersoffaith.mof@gmail.com. Order your copy of Matters of Faith: The

eBook at www.smashwords.com/books/view/993177