Strength

Many people think when we become Christians we are immune to life’s hurts and pains, we are strong all the time,. Our strength comes from knowing where we can turn when we are weak!

John 15:12–14 NIV

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. [13] Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. [14] You are my friends if you do what I command.

Being a Christian isn’t a pass from life’s struggles and trials, its a promise that if you lean on the Lord, there will be an end, its the promise of being in Heaven with him, a beautiful thought because there will be no more pain and sorrow.

John 14:2–3 NIV

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? [3] And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

But that does not mean we won’t grieve for the people we have lost, even if we have no doubt that they are with Jesus, we grieve, Christian’s aren’t exempt from pain, but our one on one relationship with Christ gives us a way through pain.

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2 Corinthians 1:3–7 NIV

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, [4] who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. [5] For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. [6] If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. [7] And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

Of course it is not only death we grieve, we grieve over the mistakes we made, the testimony we didn’t share the soul that may have been lost, not because of us, but despite us. When we share our testimony we are planting a seed, but its up to the recipient to water it, nurture it, and sadly there are times no matter how hard we try those we are trying to point to the Lord, are running a hundred miles in the opposite direction.

We often feel that maybe if we had pushed harder the person or people would turn to the Lord, but we are given free will, and for some that means denying everything that we hold dear, the truth we know to be true.

There are going to be those who won’t be reached, no matter how hard we try, but that doesn’t mean we stop praying, because for those we can’t reach, there are many more we can.

Romans 8:26–28 NIV

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. [27] And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. [28] And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Strength is know where to turn to when we are weak, its being a light to those around us, planting that seed, its knowing we don’t have all the answers but we serve the One who does.

Copyright Michelle R Kidwell

February 20.2025