When I was in high school, I breached the 110 pound mark my senior year, and I was asked to join the weightlifting team. I was wiry and scrappy. That’s what I was told. I was also told there were very few girls in my weight class. The reason there were so few in this weight class is the bar without adding any weights to it probably weighed more than I did. I kindly declined the offer.
We’ve been covering the phrases: with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength, and with all your soul. Today, we are going to cover with all your strength.
Strength or might means force, abundance, wholly, speedily, diligently. Deuteronomy 6:5, Mark 12:30, and Luke 10:27 says we are to love the Lord our God with all our strength. It’s a state of being strong, You aren’t born with strength. Strength is something you have to develop through exercise and a healthy diet. You have physical strength, mental strength, emotional strength, and spiritual strength.
Exercise to have physical strength by working outside or going to the gym. Exercise your mental strength by working on keeping your mind sharp. Exercise your emotional strength by monitoring self-control. Exercise spiritual strength by following God where He leads.
Your diet for physical strength means eating healthy food, no fast food or foods high in fat and sugars. Your diet for emotional strength may be puzzles or learning new things. Your diet for emotional strength is focusing on God’s trust regarding any situation your feeling may become involved in. Your diet for spiritual strength is the bread of life and living water.
We know that in our own strength, we all fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) because none of us are righteous by our own doing (Romans 3:10). We know our strength is nothing compared to God’s strength, and yet we all try to operate in our own strength to handle life. Thank goodness we also know we are saved by grace and not by the works completed in our own strength (Ephesians 2:8). We know God searches the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are committed to Him (2 Chronicles 16:9). And in light of how little our strength is, God wants us to love Him with all the strength we can must. With every fiber of our being He wants us to love Him because that is how He loves us.
He doesn’t want us to serve Him in our own strength or might. He doesn’t want us seeking in our own strength. He doesn’t want us trusting, believing or serving out of our own strength. Too many serve out of, seek in, trust or believe in their own strength which means that person becomes self-reliant as opposed to God-reliant.
He simply wants you to love Him with all your strength, all your energy, all the force you can muster to love Him because then He will provide the strength that is necessary (Isaiah 40:31) you need to serve, to seek, to love, to believe and to trust. He is more than able to make up for your shortcomings.
Isn’t that comforting? You don’t have to seek and serve and love in your own strength. Let’s face it, there are some people who would be very difficult if not impossible to seek and serve and love in your own strength. It’s in God’s strength you can do His work and His service, but first you have to give God and love God with all you got.
Are you loving God with all your strength?
Dear Father God,
I cannot begin to fathom how you created and maintain everything that happens on this round ball called earth. I cannot begin to fathom how your word is so powerful creation took place. I cannot begin to fathom how you hold not only our solar system in the palm of your hand but so many other galaxies. I’m so thankful for your strength and might because I am so inadequate. Even in my greatest strength, nothing I do can compare to you. Thank you for searching for me, finding me, and proving your strength time after time.
Amen.
