August 5

“The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.” —PSALM 28:7

It is easy for us to say the Christian life is living in the strength of God, but how do we apply that practically, especially when everything seems to be caving in and our world is falling apart?

There is a hidden ingredient in the Christian life that will defy all natural explanation. It is the life of God Himself, but if there is no trust in God, we will simply be living by human experience. To illustrate, were we to take a flight somewhere, it is not in our strength we get to our destination, but in the strength and capability of the plane. We board the aircraft, take our seats, but do not have to flap anything. We sit back, relax and enjoy the flight, trusting the plane, not ourselves. The plane itself is the ability to fly, just as God Himself is the ability to live the Christian life. 

One of the great tragedies in Christian living is when we unwittingly take God out of our Christianity, and turn the Christian life into a lifestyle, in which it merely becomes the way we do certain things. We love our neighbors; we are kind to folks; we give to charities, but lots of people are kind and give to charities. We live by certain values and call that Christian living. We obey certain biblical laws and principles and call that Christian living, but many people have values and principles they live by. If that is how we explain our Christian lives, it will not be any different from an unbeliever. We will be trying to fly without the plane, and inevitably will run into difficulties. 

It is the life of God living in every Christian that is empowering. Jonathan did not tell David to ask God for strength, but he went to Horesh to help him find strength in God, which is very different from asking God for strength. In the book of Psalms, David himself says many times God is his strength, his shield, his rock, his fortress. Just as there was nothing divinely powerful about David, there is nothing divinely powerful about us. Our strength is in Christ alone, and when we get hold of that, we will realize we cannot live the Christian life anymore than we can fly. It is lived solely in relationship with Jesus and it is learning to live in His strength.

PRAYER: Dear Heavenly Father, not only in difficult times, but I pray that in my every day activities and interactions with others, your strength be revealed in me. Thank You, Lord. 

TO REFLECT UPON: Am I learning to live in the strength of God, leaving the outcome to Him?