In the Strength of the Lord

“I love you, O Lord, my strength.

The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,

    my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,

    my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,

    and I am saved from my enemies.

“The cords of death encompassed me;

    the torrents of destruction assailed me;

the cords of Sheol entangled me;

    the snares of death confronted me.

“In my distress I called upon the Lord;

    to my God I cried for help.

From his temple he heard my voice,

    and my cry to him reached his ears.” (Psalms 18:1-6 ESV)

Sometimes it takes going through many hardships and persecutions to get us to that place in our lives when truly the Lord Jesus is the one we look to in all things and for all things to be our strength, our rock, our fortress, and our deliverer. For we grow up in this world learning to be dependent on others, and so when they fail us, and when they don’t love us as they ought, or when they treat us badly, our world may fall apart all around us.

Now we shouldn’t be so tough and so thick skinned that we don’t care at all what people think of us or about how they treat us. We should remain tenderhearted and compassionate and caring people, and if we are, then when others are cruel to us and betray us or they persecute us just because they disagree with us, we should feel that. But we shouldn’t let their opinions of us determine who we are and what we do and what we say.

Let me give you an example of what I mean by this. For much of my life, although I was not a people pleaser, and I was following the Lord in obedience, I came up against opposition and persecution and mistreatment at the hands of others so severe, at times, that I retreated in fear. I had been severely abused by my father, as a child, and I had a very difficult time dealing with situations where I had people attacking me fiercely.

But the Lord would always bring me back around, and he would give me the strength to keep moving forward, despite how others treated me. But it took many years of this before he brought me to that place where I no longer retreated. Now that doesn’t mean that I never feel like retreating. Sometimes I still do, because I am not tough. I am not strong. I am very tenderhearted, and I break easily. I bleed. But the Lord is my strength.

So, for me, I had to go through a lot before I finally learned not to run away, and not to retreat, and to not give up just because things got much harder. And they will continue to get harder the closer we are to our Lord’s return. So, although I don’t recommend that you follow my example of how I used to deal with adversity, I will say that all that adversity that I faced over the years really did help me to get stronger, but only in the strength of the Lord.

But “stronger” in faith and in perseverance, and in doing the will of the Lord despite all opposition, should never make us hard and less loving and less compassionate and tenderhearted. And when we are strong in the strength of the Lord, and he is the one giving us the courage and the determination to follow him in obedience, and to speak the words he wants us to speak, it is not to be taken as a sign that we are tough and uncaring people.

If I did not care deeply about the people of this world and the people I know and the members of my family, and if I did not love the Lord God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, I would not be doing what I am doing. For the hits keep coming. And I feel every one of them deeply. But I am only able to do what I do every day in writing these devotions because the Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. And so I take refuge in him.

Only through his strength and his power am I able to wake up every day and sit down at my table and write out devotions that I know are not going to be well received by the masses but are what the Scriptures teach. Now I am not saying that everything I write comes straight from the Scriptures, but that in the power and strength of the Lord I am diligent in making certain that, to the best of my understanding, I am sharing the truth of God’s word.

But the point of this lesson, I believe, is that we should all follow our Lord in obedience in doing whatever it is he has called us to do, and we should do so in his strength and wisdom and power, and we should not let any opposition to the truth of God’s word, which comes against us, deter us from following the Lord in obedience. But we are to rely upon the Lord to be our strength, and then we are to keep on in doing what he says to do, in his strength.

[Matt 5:10-12; Matt 10:16-25; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 6:22-23; Lu 21:12-19; Jn 15:1-21; Jn 16:33; Jn 17:14; Ac 14:22; Rom 5:3-5; Phil 3:7-11; 1 Pet 1:6-7; 1 Pet 4:12-17; 2 Tim 3:12; 1 Thess 3:1-5; Jas 1:2-4; 2 Co 1:3-11; Heb 12:3-12; 1 Jn 3:13; Rev 6:9-11; Rev 7:9-17; Rev 11:1-3; Rev 12:17; Rev 13:1-18; Rev 14:1-13]

As the Deer 

By Martin J. Nystrom

Based off Psalm 42:1

As the deer panteth for the water

 So my soul longeth after You

 You alone are my heart's desire

 And I long to worship You

You alone are my strength, my shield

 To You alone may my spirit yield

 You alone are my heart's desire

 And I long to worship You

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZv3jzOTE70

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