How to Be Strong

God has been changing a misperception I have had about Him.  The misperception has been about how we are to walk through our Christian lives.  I have walked through much of my Christian life trying to be a "Christian" for God.  I think I came to this idea because of the way we talk about church and quiet time.  We go to "church" on Sunday to be in God's presence and then we leave.  We have quiet time in the morning to meet with God and then we leave.  I walked away with the idea that the rest of the time, was my chance to "prove" to God that I can apply what I've learned to life's situations.  The result, however, was often failure.  I returned to His presence discouraged, wanting to learn how to do it better the next time.  Thankfully, God has been stripping this misperception away.  Our righteousness, our ability to walk in the things of God, comes from Christ ALONE.  And He wants to live in and through us.  We cannot enter into our battles alone and He doesn't expect us to either.  The following post concerns how God wants us to stand strong in battle.

God does not send you to the front lines by yourself.  He doesn't ask you to "get it all together" during your quiet time and then pat you on the head and send you off.  However, I think this is the impression we often get today and we end up leaving Him in our quiet times and miss the whole point of going out with Him.

Ephesians 6:1

Stand strong IN the LORD and IN HIS GREAT POWER.

Where are we to stand? IN Him.  What part of Him? His GREAT POWER.  In that place we can put on the full armor.  In a previous post, Armour, I share exactly how our armour is comprised of the very attributes of God Himself.

What else does the Bible say about battle?

2 Chronicles 20:15b

For the battle is not yours, but God’s.

Exodus 15:3

The LORD is a warrior;

the LORD is his name.

Isaiah 42:13

The LORD will march out like a champion,

like a warrior he will stir up his zeal;

with a shout he will raise the battle cry

and will triumph over his enemies.

The Lord leads the way into battle because He, Himself is the victorious warrior. His offer includes more as you can see in the following Psalm

Psalm 139:5

You hem me in behind and before,

and you lay your hand upon me.

God's offer to us is 360.  He goes before us, behind us and He is next to us every step away.

When you face battles in your life remember that God does NOT expect or desire for you to fight alone (pause and take that in).  Instead, He has invited you to stand strong IN Him.  He will go before you and fight the way and He will surround you in the midst of the battle.  Take your proper place in the rank of the battle, you don't have to go about it on your own.

In Christ,