Infused with God's Strength

by Elizabeth Stewart

"What an honor for me in God's eyes!

That God should be my strength!"

Isaiah 49:5 The Message Bible

How many times have I come into God's presence and offered up to Him things done out of the strength of my own intellect, out of my own gifts and talents, out of the power of my own will. Like Cain's offering of produce grown by the sweat of his own brow, I bring to God my offerings of self-effort. (See Genesis 4) He cannot approve of these offerings tainted with pride in my own abilities, and so, in His mercy and grace, He allows me to see my own strength for what it is, it is the false armor of Saul. (See 1 Samuel 17) King Saul tried to get David to approach Goliath wearing Saul's armor. But David "was not used to them" the Bible says. David had fought and killed the bear and the lion wearing, not the false armor of human strength, but the armor of God. David wisely chose to fight Saul with the trusted weapons of God's warfare and in the power of God's name. 

Too often I have taken the verse in Philippians 4:13 and placed the emphasis in the wrong place. "I can do all things!", I say to myself and I forget that the emphasis should be on the end of the verse, "through Christ Who strengthens me." In the Amplified Bible, Classic Edition, it says it this way, "through Him Who infuses inner strength into me." To infuse something means the introduction of a quality that fills and permeates the whole being. Christ takes my weakness, infuses me with His strength, filling and permeating my whole being with His strength. How though, can He infuse my weakness with His strength, if I never offer Him my weakness, if all I bring to Him, day after day, are the tainted offerings of my own strength. God, in His mercy and grace, will allow us to come to the end of our own strength, until, helpless as a child, we admit our deep need of Him. It is then that we can experience the honor of being infused with His strength. Perhaps Don Moen said it best in his song, He Giveth More Grace.

"When we have exhausted our store of endurance,

When our strength has failed ere the day is half done;

When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,

Our Father's full giving is only begun.

His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,

His pow'r has no boundary known unto men;

For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,

He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again."

It feels very vulnerable to exhaust all of the resources of your own strength. Yet God's word promises that when I am weak [in human strength], then am I [truly] strong (able, powerful), in divine strength. 2 Corinthians 12:10 AMPC  What an honor to be dependent on and filled with God's strength!

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