For this reason: You’re stronger than you think
Perspective
Everyone has struggles and things they are going through. There are seasons where no matter what you do, you just can’t seem to change something that you desperately wish you could change. Sometimes they are heavy things, sometimes they are lighter things but no matter what they are we can all agree that many of the things we face today are easier than past generations.
We have access to so much technology, things like: door dash, Amazon prime, cell phones. There’s so many more but these are a few. This way of convenience and speed is great automating our lives but it’s not so great for those of us who are followers of Jesus who are looking to form our lives around looking like him in character and practice.
The life of discipleship that we are called to with Jesus requires spiritual endurance from His power.
Colossians 1:11
God will strengthen you with his own great power so that you will not give up when troubles come, but you will be patient.
The goal of this verse is pointing to the infusion of Christ in our lives that we could endure our own doubts and our own exhaustion to persevere through trials. We need a fight in us to advance in spiritual progress to have a never settling spirit.
Increasing measure
There is a development in our spiritual progress that requires us to add to our faith, and as we walk further down the journey of life with Jesus we would add to our maturity.
2 Peter 1:5-8
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge;and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Do we have a vision for our spiritual progress? Do we think about how we want to grow and how we will get there? This passage tells us we should progress in our maturity. God has more for us, his vision is higher than ours, he has more joy, more use of our spiritual gifts, more people he has positioned for us to love. The goal of this passage is to arouse our desire to be more in tune with Jesus so we can do the things he has set for us.
Does everything else in your life take priority, or do we intentionally seek growth in our spiritual lives? Can we surrender to the call to stay tethered to Jesus? to steward what we have been entrusted, without wavering or faltering? Faith is long obedience in the same direction, but when you’re tired it’s easy to veer off course. Our faith requires us to course correct when needed and ask for the compass of the Holy Spirit to show us how to get back on the path with Jesus. Sometimes we just must sit down in the weeds and call out for Jesus to come and get us where we are. He will come to us where we are when we meet him with honesty.
Patience
Patience is the ability to accept problems or delay without becoming anxious or annoyed. Doesn’t that sound fun? We can’t patiently endure everything on our own. This verse reminds us that we don’t have to do this on our own. We can be strengthened by His power. The Greek translation here means “all powers”. There are 15 words for power in Greek and the three used most frequently in scripture are:
· Dunamis- divine ability to work miracles deposited into a person
· Kratos- demonstrated power, eruptive, tangible, outward, externally displayed power
· Exousia- delegated authority, functioning in a position of power
If we are not engaging in spiritual disciplines, we will still contain the ability to display God’s power, but the practice is our maintenance. It’s the combination of these three types of power that give us the ability to be used as a vessel for God.
Jesus valued rest while he was on Earth, it’s a component of Sabbath that we must also practice. We are not quitting when we rest, we admitting our dependence on the Father. Another discipline is prayer, which is crucial to our intimacy with Jesus. You cannot hope to be close to someone you don’t talk to, we must take our thoughts and feelings to him.
1 John 5:14-15
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
We get to pray, we get to ask God for assistance, and there is reassurance in our intimacy with Jesus.
Hebrew 12:1
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us
Sobering, we have a race set out for us right now that God determined the time and physical location when we would inhabit the Earth. He decided that each person would have a unique role to play with manifesting his Kingdom on earth with your personality and passions. He wants us to be part of it with Him. All of us have a ministry, we can fulfill it, or we can neglect it. We are responsible for that and have the option to drop out of the race. This means that we need to develop endurance and perseverance, so that we continue to want to run the race.
As we go about our days and weeks, I invite you to use this phrase: “for the joy of ________ set before (your name), He/She endured _______” . This phrase reminds us what our purpose is and keeps us on the path with Jesus.
Bend us Oh God
Even Roberts was part of the Whelsh Revival. He got a revelation that 100,000 people would be saved and started praying the prayer “bend us Oh God”. “I am willing to be made willing”, it acknowledges that we need Him to do it. As he prayed this prayer the Holy Spirit started waking him up in the night, and he would have these amazing revelations. It kept happening and he began preaching across his country, and people were overcome with conviction. It changed the economy, liquor stores went out of business, sporting events were canceled because so many people were going to revivals instead. In three years, 300,000 people were saved. As the revival began to slow down, this man became more recluse. In his last journal entry he said, “I don’t know why I was born”. It's a sad story, starting strong doesn’t mean ending well.
Be still
A better translation of this verse is “Let go of your grip and know that I am God”. Co-laboring with Christ means giving him control over our lives, when we think we can’t do something it’s our responsibility to go to him and