Ephesians 6:10 – Being Strong for Us
"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might"
Ephesians 6:10 (ESV)
We don't need to be strong, just to let God be strong for us.
A common theme in the Gospel is less us, more Him. So if it feels like almost every one of these posts is pushing that, that's just because it's that important and hard to follow through with. Yes, our culture often brings us down and yes, it also promotes "hyping ourselves up" as the solution. Most everyone who might read this has been through that cycle enough to understand that it really only makes the problem worse.
"Man = Sin = Bad" is such an important thing to understand, especially when talking about misconceptions about our relationship with Christ and false Christianity. My thoughts on the Gospel boil down to that most of the time, since it's the "theme" of the story of Man's creation, and therefore a lot of my own personal ministry is built on it. But the takeaway from that is not that we're hopeless or that we have no future, the takeaway is that alone we're hopeless and alone we have no future. Our hope is Christ, our future is Christ.
Alone, we have no strength. Our strength is Christ. What I'm getting at, is that it's possible to be constantly fighting the good fight of faith, while being patient with ourselves when we stumble and mess up. If we didn't screw up, we wouldn't have needed Christ in the first place. If that's difficult to handle sometimes, if we're ashamed of our weakness and frustrated with our mistakes, that's okay – but in those moments we need to reassess what our motives are.
Are we fighting to get what God can give us, or are we fighting because He's shown us He's worth fighting for, accepting what He can give us along the way?
"How can I make Your strength, my strength? Let me be patient with myself, yet convicted to live in a way that glorifies You."