1 Peter 5:10 “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself . . . strengthen . . . you.”
Have you ever heard someone say, “He’s a strong Christian”? Maybe you’ve said such words. If you have, what did you mean when you said them? Conversely, have you ever heard someone say, “He’s a weak Christian.” While I know I’ve heard the first statement, I don’t know that I’ve ever heard the second. Perhaps that’s because being a “weak Christian” isn’t something worth noting about someone. It’s not something that stands out as a particularly evident component of their life. However, when we think of the term “strong Christian” it points to the evidence of that strength in a life; things like their strong faith, their boldness to share the gospel, a walk that marks their talk, that sort of thing.
So, if you are a Christian, which would you rather be – a strong or a weak one? It’s likely you don’t aspire to weakness. So, from whence comes our strength? Is it something we can acquire by periodic weightlifting sessions at the gym? Can we pump ourselves up with steroids? Is there some other physical effort by which we can acquire it? Obviously, the answer is “No,” for spiritual strength comes only through spiritual exercise. It’s something that can only come to us from God. As Paul said, “I can do all things through HIM Who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
So how does THAT happen? Do we just sit around and wait for Him to zap us somehow? Again, the answer is “No.” So, what IS the answer? Well, for one, we can pray for it. If we really want spiritual strength, then we should ask God for it. That’s exactly what Paul prayed for the Ephesian church when he asked God “that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being” (Ephesians 3:16).
Then, we must eat well, spiritually, that is. We must eat from the bread of life that God has provided for us. Throughout the Scriptures the Bible refers to itself with analogies to physical food. For example, Peter said this: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation” (1 Peter 2:2). And in Hebrews 5:14 we have the following analogy, again with reference to the Word of God: “But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” And as Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). So, if Jesus needed the Word of God (for His words here were actually a quote FROM the Word of God, i.e., Deuteronomy 8:3), do we think WE can have the strength to resist temptation without God’s Word? Do you want to be strengthened spiritually? Are you praying about it? Are you eating from the spiritual food God has given you? If not, your desires may be more wishful thinking than a true longing for the spiritual strength that only God can give.
Another key: are you exercising your spiritual “muscles” by obeying what God has said? That’s what Paul was advising his protégé Timothy when he said to him, “Train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:7-8). He was contrasting this to a life of sin, which will always has the effect of weakening us spiritually. It’s like the saying I heard as a child in Sunday School regarding the Bible: “Sin will keep you from this book or this book will keep you from sin.” But it’s not just in reading “this book” that our strength comes. For as Jesus said at the end of His Sermon on the Mount, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” So do you want the inner strength to weather the inevitable great storms of life? Then you should set your heart, day by day, on obeying what God has said.
But then there’s another key to spiritual strength. It’s what Peter is referring to in the verse above from 1 Peter 5. He’s talking about another way that Jesus, Himself, works to strengthen us. And that is through the experience of suffering. It’s here that our weaknesses are exposed to US, for surely, HE already is well aware of them. It is so often by way of suffering that we are strengthened like we can’t otherwise be. It’s so often through suffering that our prayer life is strengthened with an earnestness that it may have lacked before. And is often by suffering that the things that God has said to us in His Word get driven deep into our hearts like they wouldn’t have been otherwise. Listen to the words of Paul as He discusses HIS suffering, something he referred to as a “thorn in the flesh, to buffet me”: “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).
So, are you there yet? Can you look at your suffering, whatever that might be, with the understanding that the very thing that God may be allowing to weaken you physically may be strengthening you spiritually like nothing else can do? If you call yourself a Christian, you should be able to have such an attitude, for God is near you in your suffering, and you can be “sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).
May God help us to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Ephesians 6:10). And may He help us to trust Him to do it in His way, for there is no other way than His way to truly be made strong in Him.
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