Thoughts on Strength and Power!
Compiled from the writings of David Brandt Berg and the Holy Scriptures
Most people have been brought up to trust in themselves, their own wisdom, power and strength. -- But when you join God's Family and become God's child, and have the honored and privileged position and great responsibility of being His representative in the World, you soon find out that your own strength and wisdom is simply not enough! To do the King's work requires the King's power! A Christian's power and strength must come from the Lord, not himself. God's Word cautions us that we are not to trust in our own fleshly might, for it will fail us. -- Jeremiah 17:5. "Not by (your) might, nor by (your) power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts!" -- Zechariah 4:6.
When we realize that we are not sufficient in ourselves, then the Lord can empower us with His Holy Spirit, and we'll know that it's only God that accomplishes anything, not ourselves! -- For "we have this treasure (God's Spirit) in (our weak) earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." -- 2Corinthians 4:7. We're God's face to the World, His representatives, and He wants to show His supernatural power through us.
Here are some quotations and verses to inspire and encourage you to look to the Lord for the power and strength that you need:
In an oil lamp, it must be the oil that burns and not the wick, for the wick burning without oil shall destroy itself! Likewise, you must let Him burn to light the way, and not try to burn of yourself, or you'll soon burn out and have no light left for your Master!
It is not I who burn, but Christ must burn within me, to give pure light, smokeless light, clear light, beautiful light! (See Galatians 2:20.) You can be a beautiful wick but still burn smoky and black, with so little oil! You must soak yourself in more oil, that you burn not, but let Him burn through you to give light to all the house!
I've turned on the faucet and water is flowing out. -- Is the faucet working? No, it's not! -- The faucet is doing nothing! It's the power and the pressure from outside that causes the water to flow through the faucet! All you do is turn it on and it flows with effortless ease! The faucet is just the channel, just a hole to let the water in and out. You say the faucet's working? The faucet is just letting it flow! The power isn't in the faucet. The power is outside. All you have to do is let it flow. Just open the faucet and let it roll!
Do what you can do, and God will do what you can't do. Man's extremity is God's opportunity.
When you've got good ideas up your sleeve, God must be on the other end of your sleeve inspiring you!
Without God's help you can do nothing good and anything bad.
In the Name of Jesus there is power, because God has confined Himself to work through the power of the Name of Jesus Christ! Without that Name there is no power!
There's nothing too small for the Lord! Take your cares and burdens -- big or small -- to Jesus! -- 1Peter 5:7.
It takes an impossible situation for God to do a miracle!
All He expects you to do is obey, then He'll do it through you. He enjoys using you, confining the majesty and the power of His omnipotence to little frail men and women! -- God in the hands of men!
When you're weakest in the flesh, then you're strongest in the Spirit.
God helps both those who can help themselves, and those who can't help themselves. How? -- With those who can help themselves, He helps them with what they can not do. -- And with those who can't help themselves at all, He does the whole thing for them.
There's no limit to what you can do if you follow God! God's requirements are met by God's enablings.
When you get under pressure or persecution, the Lord gives you a special anointing, even more than you had before, to encourage, guide and help you.
You can't deal with spiritual problems in your own strength and wisdom. It'd be better if you didn't get involved at all.
Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks.
Got any rivers you think are uncrossable?
Got any mountains you can't tunnel through?
God specializes in things thought impossible,
And He can do what no other friend can do.
When you're weak and incapable and insufficient, then God has a chance to be strong and capable and sufficient in you.
I cannot, but God can!
O balm for all my care!
The burden that I drop,
His hand will lift and bear!
There is a power to lift you up which is stronger than all the things that hold you down.
Don't say you can't, because if you couldn't, God wouldn't have asked it of you!
Little is something if God is in it, and big is nothing if God isn't!
One man against the World with God is more than a match for the Devil! -- One man and God are a majority!
Without Him you're nothing, but with Him you're everything and can do anything!
When you have nothing left but God, then for the first time you become aware that God is enough.
When I'm tired, I'm weary,
And I'm worn,
And fighting to survive,
In my very weakness,
Christ then comes alive!
Relying so much on your own natural strength and drive is the very thing that stands in the way of the Lord showing His strength.
We're not "Christian triers", but "Lord letters". -- We don't have to "try" to do things in our own strength, we just let go and let God!
The dumbest person depending on God can outsmart the smartest person not asking God for help.
"Without Me ye can do nothing! Ye would be as candles without tallow, as lamps without power, as flowers without fluid, as urns without oil and as empty vases full of nothingness and useless! But glorify Me in all things, then shall thy candle be exalted, and thy urn be full of oil and thy vase flow freely with the Water of Life, and thy flower shall not wither, thy power shall not fail and thy wisdom shall not cease!"
Most Christians are kind of childlike and stupid and a little bit dumb, that's why God can use them and that's why God works through them, confounds the mighty with the simple things, and has not revealed these things to the wise and prudent, the smart and Worldly people, but unto Christian babes like you and me. -- 1Corinthians 1:25-29; Luke 10:21. "Except ye become as a little child, ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of God." -- Matthew 18:3. People with the most education have the hardest time receiving the simplest things. The Lord has difficulty getting past their heads.
All of God's great spiritual giants were weak men who were made strong by His power.
Give me a task too big
Too hard for human hands
Then shall I come at length
To lean on Thee;
And leaning find my strength.
The small boy was trying very hard to lift a heavy object. His father, entering the room and noting his son's struggle asked him, "Are you using all your strength?" "Yes, of course I am!", the boy impatiently exclaimed. "You are not," the father answered. "You haven't asked me to help you."
Give God all the credit all the time at every turn for every little thing and He will never fail to continue to prosper and empower you.
It is God Who gives us the strength and God Who has done it all. We are the work of God, the work of His fingers, and we give Him all the glory!
All glory be to Jesus! He's the One Who does it all! We're merely His yielded instruments, vessels of clay in the hand of the Potter! -- Merely doing His will and serving His purpose for which we were called and ordained before the foundation of the Earth!
The minute you start patting yourself on the back, you're finished, and God will see to it that you're humbled. He's a jealous God, and He deserves the glory and will have no other god before Him. So you'd better not start admiring your own arm of the flesh or you're apt to lose it!
God is the One Who wants to get the credit. God is the One Who wants to get the glory, God is the only One Who can do it, and then He wants you to praise and thank Him and glorify Him because He did it. Because if you could do it, you could pat yourself on the back and say, "Well, look what I've done! Look how great I am! Look how wonderfully I'm doing!"
You'd better keep saying, "Wow! Look what God has done! Look at what the Lord's doing! Look at how great He's working! Whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all to the glory of God! -- 1Cor.10:31.
Men of force are men of faults, and the biggest fault is to keep on going in their own force instead of letting the Lord do it.
Just leave your burden with the Lord, knowing that only He can solve the problems and only He can do the work. We cannot solve the problems, He has to do it. Let go and let God!
You are weak because in your pride you're trying to do things in the energy of your own flesh instead of trusting God for His grace to do it. And the reason you haven't got the faith and can't believe God for sufficient strength is because you're not yielded yet, most of all your pride.
The biggest failures in the Word of God were the bigshot boys who tried to do things in their own natural wisdom, but fell flat on their faces.
It's much more difficult for people with a great deal of natural talent to simply trust the Lord, because they've got so much natural strength and they're used to leaning on that. They're used to having their own strength there, and when it's suddenly gone, they just collapse.
It's got to be the Lord, and He wants to do it and He wants to get the credit and glory for it. If in any way, shape or form you think you're going to get a little credit for anything you've done and be able to brag about how you did it and made it and how you had the faith and all the rest, He's apt to slap you down a little to show you Who's Boss, and to really humble you and make you look to Him alone!
Deuteronomy 20:1 When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them: for the Lord thy God is with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 31:8 The Lord, He it is that doth go before thee; He will be with thee, He will not fail thee, neither forsake thee; fear not, neither be dismayed.
Joshua 23:10 One man of you shall chase a thousand: for the Lord your God, He it is that fighteth for you, as He hath promised you.
1Samuel 2:9 He will keep the feet of His saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by (his own) strength shall no man prevail.
1Sam.14:6b There is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few.
1Samuel 17:45,47 Then said David to the Philistine (Goliath), Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the Name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, Whom thou hast defied. And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the Lord's, and He will give you into our hands.
2Chronicles 16:7,8 And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand. Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet, because thou didst rely on the Lord, He delivered them into thine hand.
2Chronicles 20:15b Thus saith the Lord unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God's.
2Chronicles 20:17 Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them: for the Lord will be with you.
2Chronicles 32:7,8 Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him: for there be more with us than with him: With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God to help us, and to fight our battles.
Nehemiah 4:20b Our God shall fight for us.
Psalm 20:7 Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the Name of the Lord our God.
Psalm 33:16,17 There is no king saved by the multitude of an host: a mighty man is not delivered by much strength. An horse is a vain thing for safety: neither shall he deliver any by his great strength.
Psalm 37:39 The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord: He is their strength in the time of trouble.
Psalm 44:6 I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me.
Psalm 60:11 Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man.
Psalm 84:5a Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee.
Psalm 89:17,18 For Thou art the glory of their strength: and in Thy favor our horn shall be exalted. For the Lord is our defense; and the Holy One of Israel is our King.
Psalm 118:8,9 It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.
Psalm 127:1 Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
Proverbs 21:31 The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the Lord.
Ecclesiastes 5:19 Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God.
Isaiah 40:29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength.
Isaiah 40:31 They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Jeremiah 17:5 Thus saith the Lord: Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.
Jeremiah 32:27 Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for Me?
Zechariah 4:6b Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
Matthew 10:20 For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.
Matthew 19:26b With God all things are possible.
John 15:5 I am the Vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing.
Romans 7:18a For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing.
2Corinthians 3:4,5 And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God.
2Cor.4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
2Cor.10:4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.
2Corinthians 12:9,10 And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
Phil.4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.