Strength/Weakness Nugget

**We need to cast our weaknesses on God**

Here in Ethiopia, in the Guest House, each morning we have devotions together. Each person is on the rotating schedule, and a couple mornings ago it was my turn. The list was made up for that week on Sunday, and I had it on Monday. And I didn't find out I had it the next morning until late afternoon, if not later(perhaps 7:30ish). Well, on Sunday nights we have Home Church with New Zealand and so through the course of Home Church(I can't remember if it was in a prayer or in a statement) Asaua made the comment of us throwing our weaknesses on God.

And God worked in my to develop that into the next morning's devotional.

So, the first verse that naturally came up was 1 Peter 5:7: casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

So, because God cares for us and loves us, he wants our anxieties, our worries, our cares, our fears.

Sometimes our weaknesses are public things like not being able to lead a ministry, teach a class, help in a Bible Club, etc. But other times they can be private weaknesses like sin weaknesses.

2 Cor. 12:7-9

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.

But he said to me, “My grade is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

God's power comes to show—to its perfection—when we are weak. When we can't do something. It's when we absolutely need him that God's power shines the brightest and most powerful. And when we realize our weakness—that we can't do something—then God's power can rest on us. And it's then that we have power over our weaknesses, when Christ's complete power rests on us.

Isaiah 30:9-15

For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord;

who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions,

leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”

Therefore thus says the Hold One of Israel, “Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them,

therefor this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant;

and its breaking is like that of a potter's vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the earth, or to dip up water out of the cistern,”

For thus said the lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling,

It is in returning to God and resting upon Him that we will be saved. And it is in quietness and trust that we gain strength.

But...sometimes we are unwilling to return to Him, to rest on Him, to be quiet and to trust. And because of that we fall “victim” to problems. Like the children of Israel in the rest of the chapter. They suffered battle loss, one thousand would flee at the sight of one, and etc.

The next chapter begins:

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord!

And yet he is wise and brings disaster; he does not call back his words, but will arise against the house of the evildoers and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.

There is woe on us when we resort to other people above God for help. When we rely on horses(speed?), numbers, and strength, but don't consult or look to God Jehovah, then we are in a worse place. God is wise. God brings disaster to our opponents(in context with this passage), which means He brings strength. How can the opponent be devastated without a greater strength opposing them?

Isaiah 40:28-31

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.

Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;

but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

God is everlasting. He is the Creator of the entire earth(which exemplifies His strength). He does not faint or grow weary. He has immense understanding. And because He is so powerful, he can actually give strength to the faint and weak. If He weren't strong Himself, we would be utterly powerless in life. But He is omnipotent, and He offers us to tap into His power, to partake of His strength. And the way to do that is by waiting on the Lord. We will have a new-found air about us; a strength to lift us into the heavens. We will be able to run and not be weary, and walk and not faint.

Think about it. Running, here, could be taken to imply a work; a continual process that we do: teach a class, lead a ministry. Walking, here, would then imply a life, a day-to-day living. So, when we wait on God, we won't faint despite what temptations come, or difficulties, or circumstances. We can walk—live--and not faint.

Psalm 55:22

Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.

God wants us to cast our burdens on Him—our weaknesses. And when we do, He will sustain us, never allowing us to be moved, shaken, or faltered.

Ephesians 3:14-19

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,

from whom every family in heaven and on earth is names,

that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

God allows us to be strengthened with power through God's Spirit within us. And with this strength, Christ may dwell within us through faith, and that we(having been rooted and grounded in love) may understand the enormity of God's love that surpasses knowledge. That we may be filled with -all- the fullness of God.

His entirety can be in our soul. His love, His attributes. The natural response to this would be to walk with Him in His Spirit. To abide in Him, to relish Him.

Galatians 5:16

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

So, when we have God's fullness in us, we will respond by walking in His Spirit. And when we walk by the Spirit, we will not gratify the desires of the flesh, we will not give in to temptation. God can empower us and indwell in us so that we will not be weak to sin and give in to it. We just have to accept His strength. (Remember, His strength. Not ours.)

So, to end this:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. (Ephesians 6:10)

Be strong in the Lord (not us) and in the strength and power of His might(not ours).