STRENGTH FROM ABOVE
Young people are known to be full of physical strength, energy and vigor. Yet even young people, with all their youthful energy, can get tired. Heavy weight champions can get tired and drop out of competitions they had spent months training and practicing for. There’s no one with a super body or with super energy. Superman begins and ends in the movies, you can’t find him in everyday life with everyday challenges. The only person that never gets weary, exhausted and discouraged is God (Isaiah 40:28-31).
There’s a limit to what we can face and endure with our physical strength. We need God’s strength to go through life. You can’t be so muscular, well-built and powerful that you don’t need God’s strength. We need to be strengthened in the Lord and by the Lord to overcome sin, serve God faithfully, carry out our divine assignment, and not be intimated and frightened by principalities and forces of darkness. It is only with God’s strength that we can scale over walls of opposition, not get weary in doing good, and not give up when trouble and adversity comes our way.
God is our strength and He wants to infuse us with His strength and power so we don’t collapse under the pressures of life (Psalm 28:7-8, Psalm 29:11). It is God that makes His people strong (1 Peter 5:10). The strength God gives can’t be gotten from an energy drink or stimulant. It is God working His mighty power in us; the same power that was at work when He raised Jesus Christ from the dead (Ephesians 1:19-20). This mighty power comes on us and into us as we abide in Christ; as we spend more and more time with Jesus. We are then strengthened from above to do all the things God wants us to do (Philippians 4:13). As we devote ourselves to God’s Word; spending time in it, feeding on it every day, God’s word build us up and make us strong to go out there and face any ‘Goliath’ before us (Acts 20:32).
The world offers at a price drinks, drugs and stimulants, which have so many negative side effects to make people strong. God freely gives us His Word and His Spirit to fill us with spiritual strength that doesn’t wear off or come with complications or adverse effects. As the Holy Spirit comes on us and we keep giving Him room to reside in us, power from on high comes into us and the joy of the Lord finds expression in our lives (Acts 1:8, Luke 24:49, Nehemiah 8:10). With this power, we are energized to do things we can’t do with our physical might and power, but only by the Spirit of God (Zechariah 4:6). We move from ordinary living to an extraordinary life, doing extraordinary things for God (Acts 6:8).
The devil loves to see us spiritually asleep, weak and unguarded for this is the best time for him to strike, attack and hit target. Paul fully aware of this fact encourages us to be strong in the Lord; to be strong in prayer and the Word, to be well equipped and armed for battle, so we can stand up to anything the devil and the world throws at us (Ephesians 6:10-18). There’s no magic formula or crash course to being a strong Christian. It is simply to be full of God’s Word, Spirit and power so we can pray and not faint, so we can stand firm in the faith and not faint in the day of attack, opposition and adversity.
May we be strengthened daily with power through the Holy Spirit to live a strong, courageous and victorious life in Christ Jesus, for these are the type of Christians the whole of creation is earnestly awaiting their manifestation.
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