THE
ACHIEVING POWER GIVER
BREAD
28 Do you
not know? Have you not heard? The Lord
is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow
tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. 29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak. 30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men
stumble and fall; 31 but
those who hope in the Lord will
renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and
not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:28-31 (NIV)
1 I love
you, O Lord, my strength. 2 The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my
rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my
stronghold. Psalms 18:1-2 (NIV)
17 You
may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this
wealth for me.” 18 But
remember the Lord your God, for it
is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his
covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today. Deuteronomy 8:17-18 (NIV)
16 I am
not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of
everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. Romans 1:16 (NIV)
33 It is
God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. 2 Samuel 22:33 (NIV)
7 The Lord is my strength and my shield; my
heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give
thanks to him in song. 8 The Lord is the strength of his people, a
fortress of salvation for his anointed one. Psalms 28:7-8 (NIV)
11 The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace. Psalms 29:11 (NIV)
11 If
anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone
serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things
God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for
ever and ever. Amen. 1 Peter 4:11 (NIV)
32 And
what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson,
Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered
justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the
flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to
strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their
dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so
that they might gain a better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging,
while still others were chained and put in prison. 37 They were stoned; they were
sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in
sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- 38 the world was not worthy of
them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the
ground. 39 These
were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been
promised. 40 God
had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be
made perfect. Hebrews 11:32-40 (NIV)
13 I can
do everything through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13 (NIV)
BUTTER
“A
primary qualification for serving God with any amount of success, and for doing
God’s work well and triumphantly, is a sense of our own weakness. When God’s warrior marches forth to battle,
strong in his own might, when he boasts, ‘I know that I shall conquer, my own
right arm and my conquering sword shall get unto me the victory’, defeat is not
far distant. God will not go forth with
that man who marches in his own strength.
He who reckoneth on victory thus has reckoned wrongly, for ‘it is not by
might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts’. They who go forth to fight, boasting of their
prowess, shall return with their gay banners trailed in the dust, and their
armour stained with disgrace. Those who
serve God must serve Him in His own way, and in His strength, or He will never
accept their service. That which man
doth, unaided by divine strength, God can never own. The mere fruits of the earth He casteth away;
He will only reap that corn, the seed of which was sown from heaven, watered by
grace, and ripened by the sun of divine love.
God will empty out all that thou hast before He will put His own into
thee; He will first clean out the granaries before He will fill them with the
finest of the wheat……Your emptiness is but the preparation for your being
filled, and your casting down is but the making ready for your lifting up.” C. H. Spurgeon
“If I am going to walk in this present
life according to my high calling as a Christian, I need a strength higher than
my own strength. I need the power of Christ. How is this power of Christ to be
mine? It’s not enough just to imagine that I have this power. It’s not even
enough to take the second step and reckon myself dead to sin and alive to
Christ. There must also be a communication of the power of Christ to me through
the agency of the Holy Spirit who indwells me.” Francis Schaeffer
“When
a man has not strength, if he leans on God, he becomes powerful.” D.L.
Moody
“When God is our strength, it is strength
indeed; when our strength is our own, it is only weakness.” St. Augustine
“Despair whispers,
"Lie down and die; give it all up."... But, however much Satan may
urge this course upon you, you cannot follow it if you are a child of God. His
divine fiat has bid thee go from strength to strength, and so thou shalt, and
neither death nor hell shall turn thee from thy course. What if for a while
thou art called to stand still; yet this is but to renew thy strength for some
greater advance in due time.” Charles H.
Spurgeon
“Though
assaults be many, and my enemies mighty, if God strengthen me, I have enough to
comfort me; for the greater my enemy, the more glorious my victory; and the
more glorious my victory, the more triumphant my glory.” K.H. Von Bogatzky
“It is so easy to give thanks
for what one naturally chooses, but that does not cover the ‘everything’ of the
text...One morning lately, in speaking of some small trouble, I quoted ‘In
everything give thanks,’ and at once someone answered ‘But I cannot give thanks
for everything.’ Now if our God tells us to do a thing and we say cannot, there
is something wrong somewhere, for we all know the words ‘I can do all things
through Christ which strengthens me’ - that is, all things commanded. It is
treason to say 'I cannot.’ But first we should make sure that we are commanded
to do this. The text says give thanks IN
everything, not FOR everything. All God's biddings are enablings. We can do
that. We will do
that.” Amy Carmichael
“‘I will
help thee’. O my soul, is not this
enough? Dost thou need more strength
than the omnipotence of the United Trinity?
Dost thou want more wisdom than exists in the Father, more love than
displays itself in the Son, or more power than is manifest in the influences of
the Spirit? Bring hither thine empty
pitcher! Surely this well will fill
it. Haste, gather up thy wants, and bring
them there – thine emptiness, thy woes, thy needs. Behold, this river of God is full for thy
supply; what canst thou desire beside?
Go forth, my soul, in this thy might.
The Eternal God is thine helper!”
C. H. Spurgeon
“When we
have exhausted our store of endurance, When our strength has failed ere the day
is half done, When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, Our Father’s full
giving is only begun. His love has no
limit; His grace has no measure. His
pow’r has no boundary known unto men; For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again!”
Annie Johnson
HEART SAVOR
·
Works done
in the flesh are not eternal – only those works done through the power of the
indwelling Spirit will make it through the fire which will test the quality of
each man’s work (1 Corinthians 3:10-15).
·
It is God
who gives the achieving power and the One who gives the power gets the glory.
·
God will
not own what man has done unaided by His Righteous Omnipotent Hand.
