NOW THIS GLORIOUS passage: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Eph. 6:10). This verse answers a query in some minds: Doesn’t this submission to Jesus and others produce weak, submissive types of character?
It does the very opposite. A Swedish artist has painted a picture illustrating the text: “Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides by itself alone” (see John 12:24). One portion depicts the abiding by itself alone—a person tied up with himself and confined to a narrow shell—the self-centered. Another depicts the herd-centered as in communism—the shell is larger, really a bag, where the inmates are tied to one another, and around the edge of the bag is a rope held at the mouth by a hand—the hand of Stalin. The third portion depicted those who had surrendered themselves to Christ and were rising out of their shells into a free, full, voluntary fellowship. They were the strong and free in the Lord.
Moreover, you become a strong person inherently by being in the Lord. It is a truism to say that an organism can expend as much as it takes in and no more. Its capacity to grow and give is determined by its capacity to receive. Receptivity is the law of life. The humanists say that we are environed by a physical environment only. We take in what we can from that environment, but nothing more. The Christian, however, believes in and experiences a higher environment—the environment of being in the Lord. He receives from that environment. Which will produce the stronger type of person—the one who lives by a physical environment only, or the one who lives “strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might”? The one who is strong in the Lord is strong in himself. A friend wrote, “Don’t tax your strength.” I replied, “I don’t tax my strength. I take His strength and live by the strength of Another.” I expend what I take in—from Him!
O Jesus, my Lord, I am strong in strength not my own, I love by love not my own, I live by life not my own. I am a little child—receiving, receiving. But oh, how strong—giving, giving—and never exhausted; always full! I thank Thee. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I take from God with both hands so I can give to others with both hands.
