Strength. That word can bring up so many thoughts. We can be impressed by great feats of strength. Lifting, pushing, dragging, carrying, etc. It’s a mark of a person when they can exercise the strength they have. It can be something we consider in the physical. It can just as well be considered a great internal quality. In all cases, though, that strength is exercised to get something done. We know the strength is exercised because something is accomplished.
Perhaps it’s worth checking in on how God sees strength and why we need His strength to operate. God’s strength is seen in how His hand delivered His people from slavery. God’s idea of strength can be seen in how He rescued a family from the flood. God’s strength can even be seen in Him operating through a man who devoted himself to ensure he lived according to the Nazirite vow and didn’t cut his hair, and so, by the strength God gave him, he was able to overcome forces and blockades. God’s strength is seen in how His Son went to the cross to take on the sins of the world. God’s idea of strength is seen in how 120 people were empowered to speak of His wonders and praises. God’s strength is displayed in how two men faced the full force of the religious establishment and defied them when told to stop talking in the name of Jesus.
I am privileged to have observed people operate in the strength of the Lord. I saw people endure great hardship, terrible setbacks, betrayal and seemingly overwhelming odds to accomplish what God told them to do. I had a view of seeing them operate in a power that was not their own – it wasn’t their stamina, their ability or their cunning. It was the strength of the Lord in operation in them that allowed them to deliver.
Recalling these episodes, both in Scripture and through witnessing, stacks things up highly when it comes to considering whether the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead is able to operate in and through me for the glory of God. I sometimes doubt. I do. I can be referred to my failings and disappointments. The past can be painted for me to see the times when I functioned in my weakness and failed to function in any way that pleased the Lord.
In those times of doubt, though, the indwelling Spirit of God rises as the Spirit of Might. It is Him who dispels every dissenting voice. It is He who enables me to rise anew in His strength to do what He calls me to do. It is Him who empowers me to be about the Kingdom business that matters because it brings glory to Him who delivered me by His might, established me by His might and propels me from one degree of glory to the next by His might.
Thank God that He is the Almighty. Thank God that there is nothing greater or more powerful than Him. Thank God that His strength is not limited by our concepts. Thank God that greater is He who lives in me than he that is in the world. Thank God for the Holy Spirit He gives to all who believe and that gives us the Spirit of Might.
For His Name’s Sake
C. L. J. Dryden
Shalom
