Our Weakness, His Strength

1/19/2012

Weather Report From Heaven: Sunny and bright, with an abundance of light and lots of singing and rejoicing.

Bible Verse of the Day: " Who is this, robed in splendor, striding forward in the greatness of his strength? It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save."

We are all born with unique abilities. What comes naturally fore some, might be nearly impossible for others. Some people have a knack for selling, some for teaching, some for math and others for science. Some are athletically gifted, some are Spirit led. God gave us unique gifts because He had a specific goal in mind for each one of us when He created us in our mother's womb and He needs us to fulfill our role. Likewise, we also have weaknesses. Things that leave us vulnerable to destroying our lives if we are not able to recognize them and to reign them in. Many people have similar weaknesses, areas in our lives where we are easy pray for the evil one if we are not especially careful. Most, including myself, have struggled with one or more of these things at various times throughout our lives: Lust, insecurity, fear, greed, gossip, pride, dishonesty, substance abuse, ungratefulness, the list goes on and on. I have struggled with each of these areas at one time or another in my life. What truly matters though is our we willing to recognize our weaknesses, the areas where we are especially vulnerable at any given time, and to realize that we may not have the strength to deal with them on our own? Our personality flaws can be a powerful motivation for good or evil in our lives, depending on our response. A proclivity for sin can ruin your life or it can drive you to utter dependence on God. The fact that God is mighty to save us from our weaknesses, our sin, should be the joy we focus on when we realize that we are too weak to deal with certain things on our own. The Apostle Paul understood this so well that he had gotten to the point where he had learned to rejoice in his sufferings, for when he was weak, he knew that he must depend fully on God and that God alone was strong enough to pull him through any ordeal. In the Bible verse of the day above, the term mighty to save should give us great joy and comfort. We think of mighty in our world today in terms of brute strength and physical prowess. But in the original Hebrew text, the word for mighty is yasha, which indicates freeing, delivering, defending, preserving, rescuing, saving, victorious. In the grandest sense, yasha means that if we trust in the Lord, God will win. He wins the very lives of the people he sets out to rescue from harm. When we think of God in this way, we grow in our faith and get excited about what He can do for those who put their trust in Him. I have found many times in my life how weak I was to deal with certain sins in my life. My initial response was either one of pride, saying I could find or way to deal with it, or to try and downplay the significance of the very sin that was holding me in bondage. I have found that to be a recipe for disaster. Sin never sleeps and it's consequences always stay longer than we want them to stay, and always cost more than we want to pay. Make no mistake, sin can ruin your life. It can leave you broken, destitute and alone. Putting our faith in God's strength and Him alone can lead us to a new, better life free of those areas of our life that we are too weak to control. He alone is mighty to save. He will free us and deliver us from our temptations if we turn to Him with utter dependence. Praise be to God for His power is made great in our weakness.