Faith in the News Christian News
Here are six places where you can find inner strength.
Meditating on God’s Word
The psalmist loved to mediate on Scripture (Psalm 119:15), but this is not the type of mediation that the world gets into, because they try to empty their minds, but that opens them up to all sorts of evil spirits and demonic influence. The problem with having an open mind is that anything can come in. We don’t sleep with our doors open at night…we lock them to keep the thief out, so when I say meditate on God’s Word, I mean ponder it, consider it, and reflect on it, and you’ll find strength for your soul.
Praying Back God’s Word
When I came to saving faith many years ago, I remember praying back Psalm 51, which is a psalm of repentance. It is the perfect prayer in psalm to pray back to God, because for me, I am in the place of David. In other words, I did similar things that were still worthy of God’s judgment. Not adultery or murder, but enough sins to land me in hell, and being fully worthy of God’s wrath. Put yourself in the Scriptures when the psalmist says “Have mercy on me” (Psalm 51:1), and “Wash away all my iniquities” (Psalm 51:2). If you do, you are praying in a biblical manner.
Focus on Christ
If Peter had kept his eyes on Jesus while walking on the water, he might have reached Jesus, but like all of us, Peter took his eyes off of Jesus and looked at the winds and waves. That’s when he began to sink and had to cry out, “Lord, save me” (Matt 14:30). Of course, Jesus did save him and “reached out his hand and took hold of him” (Matt 14:31). When you feel like you’re about to drown in trials, and it’s getting up over your head, cry out to Jesus and say, “Lord, save me,” and He too will reach “out his hand and” take hold of you. A great source of inner strength is to focus on Jesus.
Surrender to God
I have a close friend who has battled with pornography for years. He never had any peace. He do fine for a few days, but then fall back into it and feel hopeless again. One day, after many years of this struggle, he said, “I surrender. I give up.” He told me, “When I said ‘I surrender,’” there was an overwhelming sense of peace that came over him, because he finally realized that he could not fight this on his own. The Bible teaches, “The battle belongs to the Lord” and we are not saved by “the arm of flesh” or by our own strength. He mediated on his inability to conquer this addiction, and by surrendering in his quite time, he found victory, but by the hand of God, not his. Ironically, there was victory in surrender.
Memorizing Scripture
The psalmist wrote, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11), which means he memorized or stored up the Word of God in his mind (heart) so that he would not sin against God. In other words, memorizing Scripture can give us an inner resource of strength that is found only in the Word of God and in the God of the Word. If you dwell on the Word, the Word will dwell in you.
Trust in God
If we trust in ourselves, then we are building our house on sand. But whoever trusts in the Lord, “will discover good” (Prov 16:20), and “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD” (Jer 17:7). When you think about Who God is, that should renew your spirit because you know that He is God and there is no other, and what He says, cannot be changed. I trust that. I don’t trust my feelings.
Conclusion
You can find strength for your soul in meditating on God’s Word, on praying back God’s Word, by focusing on Jesus Who is the Word of God (John 1:1, 14), by surrendering to God, by memorizing the Word, and by trusting the God of the Word, as found in the Word of God.
May God richly bless you,
Pastor Jack Wellman
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