STRENGTH FOR THE WAY
The challenges, oppositions, obligations, and responsibilities we are faced with today can drain and sap our strength to serve the Lord Jesus Christ with the zeal He desires. So we need to be constantly drawing new and fresh life from Jesus the vine. He said in John chapter 6: 53 that if we do not eat of His body and drink of his blood, then we will have no life. To eat His body and drink His blood in the spirit means to apprehend, appropriate, and incorporate into our lives His good and His truth.
Jesus said in John 15: 1- 8 that without Him we can do nothing. The natural, physical body has it’s life from this world but is controlled and vivified by the spirit of man flowing into and through it. The body is dead for the born again believer, because he has come into the revelation that man is spirit living in a body and has a soul which is will, mind, and emotions. Romans 6: 1-11. This spiritual body is maturing in the natural body as we live passing through this world, as we are being regenerated we put off the qualities of the earthly, natural man, and put on the qualities of the nature of Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1: 4 ; 1 Corinthians 15: 40-50. It’s is not enough to have doctrines in the mind, we need also to have those teachings formed in our will by love to God and our neighbour by doing good continually, and this not for merit but acknowledging that it’s Christ in us who does the works.
To live daily and keep this focus we need to guard against fainting. In the natural fainting means to lose consciousness, grow weary and weak. Spiritually we can lose our focus as to who we are in Christ, what we are called to do for Him, how we are to live before the world, why we are here, and where we are going. If we lose this vision we are fainting. The purpose of this message is to strengthen us and to look into the Word of God for truth to help us overcome fainting in the way.
In Isaiah 40 we see the Lord saying that those who wait on Him shall renew or exchange their strength. We cannot faint in the Lord’s strength, we faint in ours. During the process of regeneration God orchestrates our circumstances as we walk faithfully in Him, and He brings us to the point of exhaustion so that we can see for ourselves that we are weak and faint, we then long for the resurrection power of the Lord and when we call upon Him, wonder of wonders His might and power flows into us and we are strong. This has to be practised throughout our journey on earth for us to be perfected. So then as the strength of the believer is removed, the strength of the Lord is resident ministering healing for the body, for as said before the body is dependent upon the spirit and not the reverse. 2 Corinthians 4: 7-18
Isaiah 40: 28- 31 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 ( this word means to bind together ) on the LORD
Shall renew ( exchange ) their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.
In Ephesians 1:15 - 22 we read of Paul the Apostle praying for the saints that the eyes of their understanding being enlightened they may know what is the hope of God’s calling, he mentions that they may know also, “ ….. what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, ..” There we have it, God wants us to know experientially the power He used in raising up the Lord Jesus from the dead. How can we know this power except we first come to an end of our own power. Those of us who want to own our lives cannot hope to come to theses revelations, even as the caterpillar cannot hope to become a beautiful butterfly and avoid the process of transformation in the cocoon.
Matthew 15: 32 Jesus looked at the multitude and saw that if they did not have something to eat they would faint on the way, they were with Him for three days and was now hungry. Three is the number of Divine completion, when we have been with the Lord for a time in our own strength He sees we are in a position for a miracle of receiving spiritual food from Him, if not we won’t be able to go on. We must seek him for spiritual food and then we won’t grow faint.
Psalm 27: 13 David said he would have fainted had he not believed …
We must believe the promises of the Lord and keep hope alive, then we will not faint.
Luke 18:1 Jesus said we are to pray at all times, which means in all states. Time in the natural means state in the spiritual. So prayer is a weapon against growing faint. Prayer is desire, not just asking for this and that, for who can pray words always ? However we can all have constant desire in our hearts welling up into our minds bringing hope, this of course means spiritual desires that the Lord sees and observes as prayer. That is what the Lord meant when he said that men should always pray.
Hebrews 12: 1-3 Here we are admonished to keep in mind the things Jesus endured as He walked among men on earth, and in doing so we will not grow faint. In verse 5 we see that the correction of the Lord in our lives can lead to discouragement if we do not focus properly on His dealings with us.
So with this short exhortation be encouraged that the Lord loves you and you are His chosen, the moment you believed and received you were impregnated by the Word of God and now the process has begun to conform you to His image and likeness. Go all the way to perfection and don’t faint. God bless.
In Christ,
Brother Roland
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