Prayer Works Morning Devotion August 18, 2026

A Chapter By Chapter Study Of The Epistles:

2 Corinthians Chapter 10

4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 

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Good morning, family. Welcome to the Prayer Works Morning Devotion. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

We gather each and every day at this time to give God the first fruits of our day, to submit to Him and to look to Him for His mercy and His grace this day, helping us ordering our steps and guiding our spirits throughout the course of this day.

We give God prayer and supplication. And again, we look for His mercy and His grace. And one of the ways that we do that is by submitting prayers and going to Him in prayers. And so before we begin today's devotion, let us go to the throne of grace.

Heavenly Father, thank You for this day for waking us to a new day with new grace and new mercies. which we claim walk in and rejoice in, because You have created this day and only You are worthy of our praise.

We thank You for the gift of life. We thank You for Your love and Your mercy, and we thank You for Your kindness towards us, because who are we, Father, that You remember us? So we thank You that You do remember us.

We thank You that You have sent Your Son Jesus to die on the cross for us and to take our place knowing that we are sinful creatures, but now through the death of Jesus and the blood of Jesus, You see us as righteous and dressed in our white robes.

So we thank You. We thank You again for Your mercy. We cannot thank You enough for loving us and being Abba Father. So now, as we start this devotion, Father, and we give it to You, we leave this in Your hands.

We leave this word today in Your hands, and we ask You to bless this word. We ask this word to be given. Even though it's coming from me, it should be through You.

We pray for Holy Spirit to defend and descend and to supply all of my needs at this moment to be able to give this word according to Your will and according to Your statute.

I pray for those that are on the call and I pray that their ears and hearts and minds are open and will be touched by this word so that they too can walk in Your marvelous light this day, Father.

We give You all praise, honor, and glory, and we thank You, and it's in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Alright, family, today we are in 2 Corinthians 10.

And after admonishing the Corinthian congregation yesterday in chapter 9, to give freely and generously and not under compulsion because God loves a cheerful giver. Paul starts this chapter by pleading with the Corinthians about their attitude.

See, there were false teachers within the Corinthian church who rejected Paul's apostolic authority. These teachers, they boasted about their natural talents and achievements.

The weapons of their warfare were carnal, and some in the congregation thought more of themselves by comparing themselves with themselves, and putting themselves above those sent to them by the Lord, namely the Apostle Paul, and the work that he was sent to them to do.

They criticized Paul's demeanor, saying he was one way in his letters and another way in person, and due to his change in plans in the past to come and visit them, questioned his reliability and were assaulting Paul's character, sowing discord among the believers and teaching false doctrine.

But Paul defends his ministry of the gospel and the kingdom of God in a way that is very different to what the Corinthians expected and were used to seeing how the Romans operated around them.

These false teachers were the Jewish legalists and wolves in sheep's clothing that entered the Corinthian church and by their words and deeds were attacking the gospel of Jesus that Paul taught because of their lack of understanding of grace and what Jesus did on the cross.

Paul knew that the very foundation of what he taught was at risk of being subverted, dividing the church, so he wrote this letter to remind them of the authority given to him by Jesus to teach the gospel and grow the church in the name of Jesus.

And to encourage the church to take a harder stance on false teachers. However, not with carnal weapons, as was the case with the Corinthian Christians, but with spiritual weapons provided by God.

Through Paul's defense of his ministry in this letter, we will learn what those weapons are, when to use them, and how we use them to glorify God, not comparing ourselves with ourselves to glorify ourselves, as was the case in Corinth.

And for that matter, even today in modern churches. Paul starts off using the weapons of the Spirit this way. Verse 1, by the humility and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you. I, Paul, who am timid when face to face with you, but bold toward you when away.

I beg you that when I come, I may not have to be as bold as I expected to be towards some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.

So first here he appeals using these weapons of meekness and gentleness of Christ. And in doing so, Paul skillfully defends his own gentleness against their criticisms. This is one of the accusations that was made against Paul by some of the Corinthian Christians.

They said he was a man who walked according to the flesh. He is accused of this because of the perceived contradiction between his gentleness and his severity. We know Paul is no stranger to being bold.

But again, Paul will defend his apostolic authority. It's important here to see how vital Paul's sense of apostolic authority was to him. Today, the idea of apostolic authority is cheapened by many of those who claim to be apostles.

So we go on in verse 4 where it goes on to say, the weapons we fight are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. And we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience once your obedience is complete.

So here Paul wants to make it clear that he himself does not war according to the flesh. Second, Paul assures the church that the weapons of his warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to pulling down of the strongholds.

In other words, the weapons that Paul used were spiritual, not fleshly, carnal weapons such as manipulation and deceit will not succeed against spiritual enemies.

For this reason, Paul appeals to the strength of God, which demolishes the strongholds and anything that stands in opposition to the truth of God's word.

In Ephesians 6, Paul lists the spiritual weapons he used: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.

To rely on these weapons took faith in God instead of carnal methods. But truly, these weapons are mighty in God for pulling down strongholds. Strongholds in this context are wrong thoughts and perceptions contradicting the true knowledge of God and the nature of God.

These strongholds are expressed in arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. The Corinthians, however, tended to rely on and even admire carnal weapons for Christian battle.

Instead of the belt of truth, they fought with manipulation. Instead of the breastplate of righteousness, they fought with the image of success. Instead of the shoes of the gospel, they fought with smooth words.

Instead of the shield of faith, they fought with the perception of power. Instead of the helmet of salvation, they fought with lording over authority. Instead of the sword of the spirit, they fought with human schemes and programs.

Jesus relied on spiritual weapons when He fought for our salvation. Philippians 2:6-8 describes this who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation.

Taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death on the cross.

Kind of victory through humble obedience offended the Corinthian Christians because it seemed so weak. The carnal human way is to overpower, dominate, manipulate, and outmaneuver.

The spiritual Jesus way is to humble yourself, die to yourself, and let God show His resurrection power through you. We have to remind ourselves that Paul here speaks to carnal worldly thinking among Christians.

He isn't talking about the world here, but the Corinthian Christians. They were the ones with the strongholds in their minds and hearts. They made the arguments against God's mind and methods.

They held onto every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. We miss it entirely if we think the love, manipulation, the image of success, smooth words, the perception of power, lording over authority and human schemes and programs are just problems among unbelievers.

Paul dealt with this heart, this mind in the church. For us today, when we start to think in this carnal way, we have to stop our thoughts, take dominion over them in Jesus, and not be conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of your mind, as it says in Romans 12:2.

Verse 7 goes on to say, you are judging by appearances. If anyone is confident that they belong to Christ, they should consider again that we too belong to Christ just as much as they do.

The people who criticized Paul and said that there were two Paul's, in other words, two different Pauls, one reflected in his letters and one that was evident in person, really didn't know Paul except on a surface level.

Paul sees the problem with the Corinthian troublemakers. They were looking only at the outward appearances and by outward appearances, Paul was weak and unimpressive.

This is a description that I was able to pull and it's probably in the year 200, not sure for sure, but it says that Paul was a man of small stature with a bald head and crooked legs in a good state of body with eyebrows meeting and his nose somewhat hooked.

By this description, if in fact true, Paul did not have a commanding stature. But regardless of this, Paul tells them, if you claim to belong to Jesus, look at yourself. You may not be mighty in outward appearance, yet you belong to Jesus.

Well, so we are Christ's as well. And I brought that up because sometimes we see people outwardly and judge that book, if you will, by its cover, not understanding what is in them. None of us, for that matter, want to be judged on mere outward appearances.

This is the biggest thing that we experience in this world today, racism, right? Outright racism because of what we appear to be, whether it's skin color or ethnicity.

We, however, often want people to see our heart, yet the Corinthian Christians, for that matter, wouldn't even grant that to Paul, you know, and this is what they too wanted for themselves.

Paul doesn't say that it's wrong here to test an apostle's credentials, but that the Corinthians used the wrong test. They judged only by outward appearance.

Verse 8 goes on to say, so even if I boast somewhat freely about the authority that the Lord gave us for building you up rather than tearing you down, I will not be ashamed of it. I do not want to seem to be trying to frighten you with my letters.

For some say his letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing. Such people should realize that what we are in our letters when we are absent, we will be in our actions when we are present.

So Paul is here uncomfortable writing about his own authority. This is because he is a humble, godly man. He uses boast here in an exaggerated, almost sarcastic sense to show he would prefer not to talk about his own authority.

It feels like boasting to him. Paul realizes how much better it would be if the Corinthian Christians would just recognize his authority so that he wouldn't have to boast somewhat more about it.

I can relate here to Paul feeling uncomfortably about himself in terms of his own authority. I know on my old job, every year we had to give a testimony or an account of ourselves.

They called it performance reviews, but they wanted us to write about ourselves and our accomplishments, basically boasting about the things that we did for the company, basically, in my opinion, so that we can keep our jobs.

And each and every year, your pay was affected by what you brought to the table for the company. And so I can understand, you know, I had a hard time writing about the things that I did.

And so I understand here why Paul is, especially under God's hand, wanting to boast in the work that he himself was doing. It's a very tough thing to do.

And you know, as far as Paul goes and the Spirit, Paul here recognizes that Jesus is the one who grants authority in the church for one reason. He does it to build up the body of believers, or in this case, edification, not to tear it down as in the world, destruction.

Paul here, his despisers among these Corinthian Christians, they felt that they had evidence against him. The evidence was that Paul seemed to be tough in his letters but weak and unimpressive in person.

So the legalists here used this as evidence, if you will, to despise him as weak and two-faced. Their great mistake here was that they were only relying on outward appearance.

Paul's despisers and detractors said his bodily presence is weak, only looking at his appearance. They also said of Paul, his speech is contemptible, hearing only the style and presentation of his sermons and not the message itself.

Paul's humility and complete reliance on the power of God instead of the power of his own personality, coupled with his strong letters, were being used against him.

They said Paul was like a dog that barks like crazy at a safe distance, but is a coward when confronted face to face. In other words, they accused Paul of being strong and bold in his letters but meek and timid in person.

And at the same time, whether Paul's weakness in bodily presence and speaking ability was temporary or permanent, it didn't bother Paul though. He knew that when he was weak, it gave God's power all the more opportunity to work.

The troublemakers among the Corinthian Christians probably wanted a consistently gentle Paul whom they felt they could freely despise and push around. However, if they would not change.

They would get a consistent Paul, but a consistently severe Paul that used the weapons of warfare given to him in the spirit and not in the flesh. Verse 12 goes on to say we do not dare to classify.

Or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves, when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves they are not wise. This explains why the carnal Corinthian critics could think.

So highly of themselves in their worldly ways of thinking. They simply measured themselves by themselves and only compared themselves among themselves.

So this means two things. First, it means making yourself the measure of others. And second, it means making others the measure of yourself. This was wrong for at least two reasons.

First, there did not seem to be a lot of really spiritual people among the Corinthian Christians to give a good comparison to. How much of a compliment could it have been to be the most spiritual person among the Corinthians?

Secondly, it was wrong because it only measured on a human scale, focused on outward appearance. When we let the Holy Spirit measure us through God's word, He measures us on God's scale and He looks at the heart.

This needs to be communicated to pastors and church leaders today. Stop measuring yourself by yourself. Stop comparing yourselves among yourselves.

We should not make ourselves the measure of others, feeling we are superior to them if by outward appearance we are more successful. On the other hand, we should not make others our measure.

Feeling we are failures if by outward appearance they are more successful. Verse 13 we, however, will not boast beyond proper limits. but will confine our boasting to the sphere of service God Himself has assigned to us.

A sphere that also includes you. We are not going too far in our boasting as would be the case if we had not come to you. For we did get as far as you with the gospel of Christ. Neither do we go beyond our limits by boasting of work done by others.

Our hope is that as your faith continues to grow, our sphere of activity among you will greatly expand, so that we can preach the gospel in regions beyond you. For we do not want to boast about work already done in someone else's territory.

So, the scripture mentions a sphere. What is a sphere? A sphere is a globe or a circle. In the biblical context, it is an area or range over within which someone or something acts, exists, or has influence or significance.

Paul's authority in the church was not unlimited and that's the point. God had granted him a sphere of authority or a measure of authority, and that sphere or measure included the Corinthian Christians, especially since he had founded that church.

For it was to you, it says, that we came with the gospel of Christ. The idea of the limits of a sphere come from the lanes that were allotted for runners in a race. The Corinthians would recognize this because they loved races and held the famous Isthmians games in Corinth.

Paul is saying, I am running in my own lane and not in someone else's. All godly authority has a sphere. It is important for the person in authority to not exercise that authority outside the sphere.

And it is important for the person under authority to recognize the sphere of authority that they are under. As the Corinthian Christians grew in maturity and in outreach their church would grow and plant many other churches.

This would, by extension, enlarge Paul's sphere of authority. Why is Paul stressing the point that he has not and will not take authority in another man's sphere? Probably because that is exactly what his opponents among the Corinthian Christians did.

They tried to boast in Paul's sphere of accomplishments. Instead, Paul's passion was to preach the gospel in the regions beyond. He was not interested in building on another man's foundation and did not want to horn in on someone else's sphere authority.

Verse 17, But let the one who boasts boast in the Lord, for it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends. So by using this quotation from Jeremiah 9:24.

Paul rebukes the Corinthian Christians who found their glory either in Paul or against Paul. Paul sweeps all away showing that we should not glory in ourselves, in another, or for that matter, against another.

We should only glory in the Lord. And perhaps Paul wanted to jog their minds about this so that they would remember the context of his quotation from Jeremiah, which says, thus says the Lord.

Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches. But let him who glorifies glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, exercising loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.

For in these I delight, says the Lord. The Corinthian Christians were the types to glory and wisdom and might and in riches instead of glorying in the Lord. The great thing about glorying in the Lord is that we can always do it.

No one is so high that they cannot glory in the Lord. No one is so low that they cannot glory in the Lord. We can all glory in the Lord. Doesn't matter how you testify about your own accomplishments.

It is what God says about us that matters and will endure. Paul wanted the respect of the Corinthian Christians but he wanted it for their sake, not his own. He knew that they were hurting their own spiritual growth and maturity by rejecting him.

But as for himself, Paul was satisfied with the approval that came from the Lord. This is the place where every Christian and especially every person in ministry must come to. It is a dangerous thing to commend oneself or to approve oneself.

Proverbs 18:1-2 says this: An unfriendly person pursues selfish ends, and against all sound judgment starts quarrels. Verse 2, fools find no pleasure in understanding, but delight in airing their own opinions. I'll let that sit with you.

False religion, false teachers, and secular philosophy has created thinking that has imprisoned the minds of millions. It is a true spiritual battle. The God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ.

Who is the image of God, as it says in 2 Corinthians 4:4. Any idea, opinion, or worldview that asserts that Christ is unnecessary is reflective of the devil's pride. Such thoughts must be taken captive and made obedient to Christ.

Those who know the truth must confront error with the weapon we've been given. And that is the sword of the spirit which is the word of God, as it says in Ephesians 6:17. Our weapons in the spiritual battle are not carnal but mighty through God.

As we are transformed by the renewing of our minds, as it says in Romans 12:2, we engage the battle against pretense and arrogant worldviews.

Trusting and rightly dividing the word of God as it says in second Timothy 2:15 we take every thought captive and pull down the strongholds and by the grace of God we set captives free in love.

Love family is the key and all things done for the kingdom must be done in love and so as we challenge you today to use the spiritual gifts and to use the spiritual weapons that God has placed in each and each and every one of us.

Let it be done in love. Love is the key. Keep love first and foremost in all that you do and say. And remember to take captive those things, those thoughts, that will enable you to pull down the strongholds that man has set up through the enemy, through the devil.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank You for this word today. Thank You for Your peace and grace. Thank You for Your loving kindness. I pray, Father, that this word today has touched someone who needed to hear about spiritual weapons.

I thank You, Father, that You gave me the privilege to speak this, and I ask that as we go this day forward in Your light that You give us these weapons and remind us constantly to be and act like Jesus.

To follow His footsteps, and to use the weapons of spiritual warfare accordingly so that You get all the glory. I pray now as we go forth in this day that You bless everyone that's here.

Bless everyone on this call and bless everyone that will hear this word at a later date through the recording. I ask You to bless their families. Bless those in need of peace. Bless those in need of healing.

Bless those in need of love. Show Yourself mighty in each of their lives this day, Father. We pray that Your Spirit lead and guide us in all things. We say now lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

For Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever in Jesus name, we pray, Amen and Amen. Amen, family. Go in peace. Go in God's grace. Go in God's light.

Know that everywhere you are, God is and he is in you and working through you each and every day. Submit yourselves and look to Him for all of your needs and He will provide jHe will give you grace. Go in peace.

Be blessed and know that we love you. God bless you. We'll see you tomorrow here again. 7 a.m. Central, 8 a.m. Eastern. God bless you.