strength

You will never be satisfied or passionate for Jesus if you live with this kind of mixture: “I want to hear things from other voices. The voice of the world, the voice of the flesh, carnality, myself and then a little bit of the voice of God too.”

In the book of 1 Samuel, we see this willingness to live with mixture in the life of the priest Eli, so much so that his eyes had begun to grow dim (see 1 Samuel 2:22-36). He could not see what God was doing any longer.

Often people contact our ministry and say, “I have no one to talk to, no one to share my burden with, no one who has time to hear my cry. I need someone I can pour my heart out to.”

King David was constantly surrounded by people. He was married and had many companions at his side. Yet we hear the same cry from him: “To whom shall I go?” It is in our nature to want another human being, with a face, eyes and ears, to listen to us and advise us.

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on 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” (Isaiah 40:28-31).

“Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue” (2 Peter 1:2-3).

We all know that Christians in the first century faced great tribulations. They endured severe testings, hard times, persecutions that were life-and-death. But they didn’t break down under the stress. Paul says the church in Thessalonica endured the loss of everything they owned, yet these believers were not rocked by the experience.