For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask…that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being …strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy. Colossians 1:9-11 (excerpted)
I’m very skeptical of things I read on the internet, but if it’s on wikipedia, it’s true, right? Out of curiosity I asked Google: who is the strongest man who’s ever lived? Google didn’t hesitate to tell me that it was a French-Canadian man named Louis Cyr. Some of his feats listed there are difficult to believe. They made me wonder if that’s where Lin-Manuel Miranda came up with the name “Luisa” for the strong sister in Encanto.
Although God, the Eternal Word, took on a physical body in the form of Jesus Christ, we have no reason to believe he was physically very strong. “He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him,” (Isaiah 53:2b). A man doesn’t have to have a handsome face to be considered beautiful. A nice physique would qualify. So I don’t think Jesus had any physical strength above the average. Certainly on the cross his physical strength failed him. His body gave out, just as anyone’s eventually would on a cross.
We do admire physical strength, but perhaps even more alluring is the strength of power. We celebrate power; we admire those who can convince people to follow them or who are smart enough, focused enough, sometimes ruthless enough to amass political power or lead corporate entities. But of course for man, power is fleeting, corrupting, and nothing in comparison to God’s power, which He has exhibited in little things like, oh, I don’t know, The Creation and The Resurrection of Christ. Yet Jesus did not seek political power as people expected the Messiah to do.
But notice what Colossians 1:11 says about strength. Paul prayed that the Christians there would be “strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power.” For what? Certainly not for weight lifting or becoming powerful in this world. Maybe for putting false teachers in their place with bold and fearless preaching, but that isn’t what Paul says here. Rather he prayed for them to be strengthened “for all patience and longsuffering with joy.” I don’t know about you, but that is not the kind of strength I was thinking of when I read “all might” and “glorious power.” Patience and longsuffering do not seem glorious.
Perhaps the most difficult type of strength to develop and maintain is moral strength, and it certainly takes courage to stand up for the truth. But what about the strength that it takes to submit? Our culture may equate submission with weakness, but it takes moral strength to do God’s will when it conflicts with your own. That’s the kind of strength Jesus had, submitting to the Father’s will “to the point of death, even the death of the cross,” (Philippians 2:8b).
But this kind of strength we don’t envy or want to have to imitate.
Why? Because when we submit to the Father’s will, it is going to put us in difficult situations sometimes. What kind of strength will we need when we’re persecuted? Or if we’re called on to be a long-term caregiver for an ailing family member? Or if we become estranged from someone we love? I think it must be the strength of “patience and longsuffering;” and don’t forget the next two words: “with joy.”
Everyone will suffer. Everyone will need moral strength at times. But how will they get it? For the Christian, God’s glorious power provides the help we need as we develop that patience “muscle.” And we can learn to endure difficulties with joy because we are tapping into God’s strength— the same strength that kept Jesus on the cross, thereby accomplishing that little matter of Salvation for all mankind.
We have enough beautiful people. We have enough powerful people. Admittedly we don’t have that many people who can lift 500 pounds with one finger. But do we really need that? What we do need are people who have the moral strength to “take up [their] cross daily,” (Luke 9:23), submitting to the Father’s will. Let’s make sure we’re asking Him to strengthen us for that purpose “with all might, according to His glorious power.”
Dear God, I thank You for the physical health and strength that I do have. I pray that whatever little power I have in this world, I will use it for good and not evil. Most of all I ask to be strengthened by the power of Your might that I may patiently submit to Your will in everything and that I may endure difficulties with joy. I thank You that I can be joyful even in hardship because of Your great and precious promises through Jesus Christ, in whose name I pray, Amen.
by Christie Cole Atkins
Walk Worthy 