pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: strength


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One Day

What amazing love God has for us!  We have the promise that one day He will return and we will be like Him.  As a child of God, we know the end of the story.

Even though we know this promise and how the story ends, we muddle along often pretending we don’t know.  For me, I live in the illusion that I am in control of my life and the things that occur in my little world.  But the reality is that in spite of all the planning, organization, … that I do, I control very little.

In fact, at times, I even fail to control myself.  In some cases I do not do what I know I should do and in other instances I do what I know I should not do.  Paul wrote of this struggle in Romans 7.  In the end he concedes what I must concede as well – only Jesus can rescue me from this struggle within.  Only through Christ do I stand a chance.

When life is hard or temptation comes my way, I must again and again remember that I am a beloved child of God.  In these times I need to recall that God is always in control and that He wants the best for me.  Laying aside self, I must trust the Spirit’s leading and guiding and I must rest in the Spirit’s protection and intercession.

1 John 3 reminds me of the “rest of the story.”  One day He will return.  And one day I will be like Him.  Until that day I wrestle with life and try to give my all to be more and more like Him every day.  This day may I live into the promise that I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

Scripture reference: 1 John 3: 1-3


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How Vast and Wide

Yesterday the people hailed Jesus as He entered Jerusalem.  People laid down their coats, waved palm branches, and shouted exultations.  To the general observer it was quite a parade!  But Jesus did not toss candy to the crowd as He rode along.  Tears stained His face and sadness consumed Him.  He knew many present would not accept Him as the Messiah and some would even be in the crowd that shouted, “Crucify him!”

Jesus’ first action after the triumphal entry was to go to the temple.  But He goes not to worship or to teach but to purge the temple.  He drives out the people who have turned the “house of prayer” into a “den of robbers.”

As we begin our Holy Week journey may we look to our hearts, the temple of our bodies.  May we seek out that which is impure and drive it from our hearts.  This week may we become a “house of prayer.”

Today, as we wrestle with this, may we also celebrate God’s vast love.  In many psalms we find great words to use as prayers.  In Psalm 36 we are reminded that His love “reaches to the heavens” and that His faithfulness “stretches to the skies.”  And we hear in verse seven, “How priceless is your unfailing love.”

He cleared the temple to make it pure.  As we wrestle with what we find in the corners of our hearts, may we be strengthened by this great and vast love and faithfulness.  As we purge what keeps us at a distance from Jesus, let our spirits remember how much He loves us.  Let us be filled with that vast love and faithfulness this week.

Scripture reference: Psalm 36: 5-11


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Idols

Is there a commandment we struggle with more than the commandment against idols? Today the idea of an idol has grown to represent a wide variety of things: money, possessions, job, position or status, physical beauty, authority, time…  Our own ‘idol’ can really be anything we place before or above God.

It is a fine line sometimes between providing for our families and accumulating wealth or between doing a good job at work and pouring oneself into the job in the pursuit of a promotion.  But when one is in a right relationship with God, then one knows in their hearts when they are nearing or have crossed that imaginary line.

The command against idols is the only command that also has a punishment attached.  Perhaps God knew people would wrestle with this one!  God warns that He will punish out to a person’s fourth generation if one bows down to idols.  However, God also promises that He will love your family for a thousand years if you love Him and follow His commands.  Quite a difference!  Must be important.

In this holy season of Lent, may we spend a little extra time looking at the idols we have in our lives.  May we seek God’s strength and presence so that our idols become less and He becomes more.

Scripture reference: Genesis 20: 4-6


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By His Strength Alone

At times we all have experienced God’s strength and presence.  Sometimes this occurs in a powerful worship or prayer experience.  Sometimes this occurs in the midst of an extraordinary event like a child’s birth or in the profound moments of a tragedy.  So we all know what it feels like to experience God’s strength and presence.

Yet so often in life and particularly in the day to day of life, we try to live by our own strength.  Society reinforces this by lifting up the self-made person and exulting those who can find success on their own.  Society devalues those who cannot.

The Advent readings for this week draw us back to the ideas that we do not live only for ourselves and that we cannot make it by our own strength alone.  As we live on th edge of God’ holy promises we realize that we are saved by His strength alone.  Just as when Mary trusted and fully relied on God, we too can feel our fears and anxieties melt away.  We too can come to realize that His favor rests upon us as well.  We can call upon His strength and presence in the day to day and experience it each moment.  Through this we are empowered, strengthened, and encouraged to do His will each day in our world.

Scripture reference: Romans 16: 25-27


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Sing to God

The Book of Psalms was like Israel’s hymnal.  The songs they sang recounted their history and their relationship with God.  Both the good and the bad are in there – psalms of praise and psalms of lament.  Most of the time they sang songs to remember their past, to seek God’s help in present trouble, or to praise their God.

The songs we now sing on Sundays or in our car or… are also ways that we connect to God.  Some of our hymns contain ‘history’ but many hymns and most contemporary songs celebrate our relationship with God and Jesus and what they bring – hope, peace, love, strength, mercy…

Song has a way of uniting us as a people of God or of bringing us to a common place.  For example, to some songs offer hope for the future while for others the same song is a call to work for justice and freedom for all.  In another way, our songs can be like scripture passages that we memorize.  We can have ‘favorites’ to sing as we praise God, as we seek to find strength or comfort in God, or as we try to connect or reconnect to God.

What are your favorite songs to sing to God?

Scripture reference: Psalms 105: 16-22 and 45b


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Faith and Trust

The invitation to Rebekah to go and marry Isaac runs so counter to our culture today.  On a day like every other day, Rebekah goes to the well to draw water.  Only on this day she meets a stranger who asks her to move many miles away to marry a man she has never met.  And she says yes and is married by the end of the chapter.

How clearly Rebekah must have sensed the hand of God at work in the scene playing out.  How in tune with God she must have been!   Her submission to God shows great inner strength.  Her faith in God is of the mountain-moving variety.

On the one hand she is an awesome and inspiring example.  On the other hand, she humbles me when I see how far I fall short of her faith and trust in God.  If someone were to come up to me today and ask me to move away to ‘x’ to help plant a church or to start a mission, I’d falter.  I’d hesitate.  What would you do?

In Psalm 100, we hear what our answer should be: “Know that the Lord, He is God!  It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.”  We are His.  All we have belongs to Him.  We are in the care of God as we roam His pasture.  May I learn to trust and obey my one and only savior, Jesus Christ!

Scripture reference: Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67


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Strong Arms

Psalm 31:2 reads: “Turn your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me.”  What words of trust in God – these statements represent sure things.  We know He will come to us.  We know He is our rock.  We know He will save us.  In times of crisis, pain, and despair, we turn to our God.  His strong arms will embrace us.

In Him we find strength every morning.  In Him we find His arm around us helping us in every step we take.  In Him we find comfort and peace as the sorrow and pain begin to well up again.

Verse 3 goes on, “Since you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead and guide me.”  Not if, not when.  God IS our rock and fortress.  In our times of struggle, may we lean into those strong arms.


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Strength and Refuge

God is often seen as our strength and our refuge.  We sometimes pray most ardently when life has taken a turn for the worse and when we feel we have nowhere else to turn.  And yes, He  hears our prayers.  Psalm 16:2 reads, “You are my Lord; apart from You I have no good thing.”  It is important to remember His blessings as we struggle or wrestle with His answer to our prayer.

At times when all is well in our lives, we can drift away from God and come to rely and trust more in ourselves and our own abilities.  We can also look to other things or people as well.  Whether it is self or medical technology or some other earthly power, we are looking to a false idol.  Verse 4 reads, “The sorrows of those will increase who run after other gods.”  It is not that God is punishing us for turning to something else for our strength and refuge, it is that we lose that contentment from God being our strength and refuge – during the good and the bad times.  It is just that in the bad times we notice the lacking more.

God is our strength and refuge.  The psalmist assures us that God assigns us our cup and portion and that God keeps us secure.  We are also reminded that in Him we have a ‘delightful inheritance’.  Psalm 20:4 reads, “May God give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.”  May the desire of our hearts be to live fully with God as our strength and refuge!


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Standing on the Word

Jesus faced much temptation – food when he was very hungry, comfort when he must have been hurting, and power when he was at his weakest.  Satan was persistent.

But Jesus was consistent.  Each and every time that Satan tempted him, Jesus responded with God’s word.  Within the words of the Old Testament Jesus found strength.  Through the word of God, Jesus found a unity and strength that helped him stand again evil.  This unity with his father is what brought him through.

It is what will bring us through as well.  Whether tempted by lust, greed, power, envy, want, fame, desire, anger, talent… there is a word that will speak to us.  God waits in His word to step into our life when we need him most.  In God’s word we can find strength to face down all that the enemy throws at us.  God is faithful.  His word tells us that he will not tempt us beyond what we can bear.  In Matthew 11:28, we hear his love: “Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”  Rest from our battles, strength for the next fight.  May we rest and trust into God for all of our needs – and especially those where we must stand against temptation!


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Always Calling Our Name

“You are my strength when I am weak,
You are the treasure that I seek.

Seeking you as a precious jewel,
Lord to give up I’d be a fool.”

These words from an old Dennis Garrigan song came to mind as I read Psalm 40 this morning. No, the song above is not based upon this Psalm (For that honor, I think that’d be Jesus, Lover of My Soul!) In the Psalm, David seeks God. He allows God to fill his heart and this leds him to desire to do God’s will. David sings of God’s love and salvation in the assembly and rests assured that God will protect him.

When we look at our lives, we will see times that we wander from God. We may go for long stretches where God is central in our lives, but occassionally go through a valley. In the Upper Room today the author told a childhood story about when he ad his brother were lost in the woods during a snowstorm. Just when they felt all was lost, they heard their Dad’s voice calling out to them. When we are in our valleys and feel lost from God, we just have to pause and we will hear Him calling our name.

Yet for some, lost is where they are. Many people feel that they can do just fine on their own. Problems can be solved, errors can be fixed. Life hums along with its slight ups and downs. No need for God. Until something comes along tht they cannot solve or fix. In the times of desparation they cry out to God. And God does NOT turn a deaf ear to them. For in their time of need or loss is when He comes to them – still full of love and grace and mercy. For He always loves us. All of us!

“Taking my sin, my cross, my shame,
Rising again I bless your name.

When I am down you lift me up,
When I am dry you fill my cup.”

As we grow in our faith we learn to walk more faithfully and more steadfastly with the Lord. We begin to know Him in our hearts all the time and begin to desire to do His will as a result. We come to rely on Him in the good and in the bad. As we are called to be God’s light in this dark world, hold your light up for all men to see. Let the world know what the song proclaims: You are my all in all!!