Jun P. Espina         10 min read
Written on October 22, 2022
Finding Strength in the Lord During Life’s Challenges
How to find strength in the Lord? The everyday belief system is to call on any so-called God during our trying times, who does not own the truth. Christ said, “I am the Truth.” It is enough promise if we believe it. But people seem to hate Christ. They crucified Him and vilified His name. Because of their love and faith in “Mama Mary,” Brahma, Vishnu, Buddha, Allah, Science, or Evolution—in other gods!
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IN THIS ARTICLE
- Finding Strength in the Lord During Life’s Challenges
- 1. Find Strength in the Lord by Truth-Seeking
- 2. Find Strength in the Lord by Recognizing Who You Are in the Eyes of God
- 3. Find Strength in the Lord by Accepting Christ’s Benefits to Those Who Believe
- 4. Find Strength in the Lord by Experiencing Divine Hope in Jesus
- 5. How to Have the Spirit of Christ: Who Will Help You Find the Strength of God?
- Conclusion
“Mama” Mary’s words were, “Whatever He [Jesus] says to you, do it.” (John 2:5) There is no mention in the Bible of Mary’s role in answering prayers. She is not a goddess. I have explored this dangerous and questionable Catholic doctrine, particularly the canned and vacuum-packed prayer, which says, “Holy Mother of God, pray for us, sinners.” As expected, I found no intelligent answer from the viewpoint outside Mariolotry.
What about Allah? Well, I found this verse: “Ask forgiveness of Him [Allah], and turn to Him (in repentance): for my Lord is Near, the Answerer (of prayers).” (Quran 11:61)
From the biblical evidence, however, Allah is not the same as our Father God in the Old Testament. Jim Boucher wrote: “Allah said to be the Holy One of Israel. But there are a number of inconsistencies between Allah, and the Holy One of Israel. In the Old Testament, God is said to have a Son (Psalm 2:7).”
Islam came 600 years after Christ’s birth. Its stories about Job, Abraham, Moses, or Jesus were sourced from the records of the Holy Bible—unless Mohammad invented new information for the biblical characters, like saying Jesus spoke months after His birth.
The Koran is not the book of truth; the Bible is. Mohammad did not claim to be the truth, but Christ did. Islam does not teach the Holy Trinity or the deity of Christ. Finding strength in the Lord becomes possible only through the medium of the truth. The Muslim faith, however, fails this litmus test.
The Truth is in Christ. And He is God the Son, but Islam rejected our Lord’s claim of deity.
We can never find divine strength from so-called sacred writings that are not the Holy Scriptures.
We need to know more. Here are the five best ways to find strength in the Lord:
1. Find Strength in the Lord by Truth-Seeking
God is the Truth. If you are a truth-seeker, you will meet Him. I once met a nun who told me I needed to know more about the Rosary and the church [Catholic]. To which I replied, “Tell me about the Bible, not the church; about the truth, not Mary.”
We find from the Holy Bible that “no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” (2 Pet. 1:22)
Divine truths about God, man, and the future of the world are all in the Holy Bible.
John F. Walvoord wrote, “Unlike other books, the Bible was written by about forty human authors who lived during a 1,500-year period beginning with Moses in the fifteenth century B.C.”
You are strong if your life is based on the truth. Finding the strength of God always happens when you have the truth from the God-given source of faith, which is the Holy Bible.
What About Those Who Reject the Bible?
There are a few who sold their souls to the devil to become rich. They also find strength in the devil, for he owns the kingdoms of this world. (See Matthew 4:8-11.) Christ said the devil is the “ruler of this world.” (John 12:31) He is the “prince of the power of the air.” (Eph. 2:2)
In 2 Corinthians 4:4, Paul wrote: “[I]n whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
In short, outside of Christ-centered faith, you can do everything with the “god of this world,” but it won’t give you the strength you need in trying times.
Christ described the devil along these lines: “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44)
Strength in the Lord is not about rejoicing in the ruling elite’s lies that they feed to the world. For example, it is not a celebration of a medical procedure or drug that will cause you harm. It is like a pastor who is recommending to his folks a candidate who is a murderer.
It is not strength in the Lord, but a weakness akin to truth-seeking fatigue.
Only through the parameters of truth will you find strength in the Lord. Jesus is the Truth. It’s worth discovering how to be found in Christ, our Lord.
2. Find Strength in the Lord by Recognizing Who You Are in the Eyes of God
There is no single book that comes close to the Bible in understanding human nature. You will find strength in the Lord if you trust your Bible as the Word of God. In Christ’s prayer to His Father God, He said,
Christ is the Word of God. (John 1:14)
The so-called “The Atheist Scholar” (unsecure link) wrote, “The Christian Bible is a failure on all the points that its proponents claim makes it relevant and necessary for our contemporary time. It is touted as a moral and ethical guide… Biblical quotations and passages are used to excite prejudice and violence against gay people, women, doctors who perform abortions, disobedient children and more. Fundamentalist Christians would dictate our morals by Leviticus. They would replace evolution with creationism. Advances in science, such as stem cell research, are opposed on all sides by religionists who cite the Bible to justify their objections to modernity. The Bible is used as a prop to maintain injustice in the name of god.”
It is where unbelievers got it so wrong. They cannot find strength in the Lord if they believe the Bible “incite[s] prejudice and violence against gay people, women, abortionists, disobedient children, and others.”
The records about killings, child sacrifices, sodomy, etc. in the Bible were accounts of humankind’s sinful nature.
Observe the gay parade if you want to see how sinful people behave when sin is pushed to its severest side effects.
Early in the Genesis story of humanity, God saw our depraved ways. Genesis 6:11-12 states,
It is how to find strength in the Lord. You need to accept that you are a sinner, like all of us, in the eyes of God. “There is none righteous, not even one.”
If you cannot accept that you are a sinner before God, you may need this passage from the Scriptures: “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9)
If you are still unconvinced that you are sinful (since you haven’t killed a person or stolen money), continue reading. You may benefit from the other points in this post.
3. Find Strength in the Lord by Accepting Christ’s Benefits to Those Who Believe
I want to share a story about a confused man at 27. He criticized the Bible, and everything Christ-related. Then, he attended church, listened to a sermon, and received Christ in his heart as his personal Lord and Savior. I was that man. I have never changed my devotion to Jesus after over 30 years since my conversion.
That is one benefit of following Christ; you will never have a lack of love for Jesus. As a result, you will experience the Spirit of Christ in your soul. The apostle Paul wrote, “you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” (Rom. 8:9)
Christ’s Intercession
What will happen if you have Christ’s Spirit in your being? Christ will help you in your dark days. That is where you will find strength in the Lord.
The Bible says, “[W]ho gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.” (Gal. 1:4; see Rom. 8:26-27)
The Holy Spirit will be in You Forever
Christ said, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17)
Christ will Use You as the Temple of the Holy Spirit
“Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, “From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”‘ But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” (John 7:37-39)
A Believer in Christ is Saved and Assured of Heaven
This is the word of our Lord: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:27-30)
You are assured of heaven as a believer. You will find strength in the Lord if you will accept Christ as I did.
If you are not satisfied with this section, please continue reading.
4. Find Strength in the Lord by Experiencing Divine Hope in Jesus
I know and understand your difficulty understanding some phrases in this post since we have a few Christianese words like “divine hope in Jesus.” Let me explain.
Before God ordered Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, He gave first His “ID” or “About Page.” He said, “‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” (Ex. 3:6)
The principle is that divine hope—which is based on the truth—empowers courage and strength in the Lord.
How does God strengthen us in the New Testament?
In the New Testament, your strength in the Lord depends on your divine hope in Jesus—if you have it. The apostle Paul said that without Christ in your soul, you have “no hope and without God in the world.” (Eph. 2:12)
You may have attended church regularly—or speak in tongues, according to your doctrine—but if Christ’s Spirit does not live in your soul, you are unsaved, “having no hope and without God in the world.”
Stephen, the first Christian martyr, showed strength before an anti-Christian mob. And this energy ruled him because of his hope in Christ. Acts 7:59 states, “They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!'”
It was how divine hope in the Lord fuels strength in God. You need Christ’s Spirit to help you face your tragic challenges, whatever they are.
5. How to Have the Spirit of Christ: Who Will Help You Find the Strength of God?
For Christ to give you His Spirit, He requires you to believe and trust in the gospel. He said,
Our Lord did not use fancy words in this passage from the Scriptures that require us to look into the dictionary. He used the artless and old-fashioned phrase, “believes in the Son has eternal life.”
If you cannot figure it out, you are the problem. You lack Christ-centered faith.
Our Lord did not use an ancient idiom to baffle you.
We are about to end this article, and if you are still confused, you must pray for more divine wisdom in Christ’s name.
Only God can change your heart toward Jesus.
According to the apostle Paul, the leading cause of unbelief in Jesus is a lack of love for the truth. People have worldview noises around them, and these help block Christ’s truths from reaching them.
If you don’t have a love for the truth, who is Jesus, it will be the end of your search for how to find strength in the Lord during life’s tragic challenges from the biblical standpoint.
“For this reason [no love for the truth] God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.” (2 Thess. 2:11-12)
Because of unbelief, God will guide you to believe what is false, the apostle Paul said.
But faith in Jesus is not rocket science. The key is trust in the Bible as the Word of God. You always have time to believe if you truly seek the truth.
Someone said, “I studied Mohammad’s life and became a Muslim; I studied Christ’s life and became a Christian.”
You cannot find strength in the Lord [Jesus], who is not your Lord. Accept Christ as your Savior and start by believing everything He says.
The apostle Paul wrote: ”
Conclusion
Truth-seeking is the key to finding strength in the Lord. This world is Satan-controlled, as already discussed above. And the devil’s expertise is manufacturing lies. Without the drive to dig down to the bottom of what is spiritual and biblical, you cannot find strength in the Lord.
We are sinners and separated from God. However, Christ humbled Himself and offered His own blood on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. He said, “[T]his is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.” (Matt. 26:28)
Accept that you are a sinner, since Christ cannot help you if you are righteous and sinless. He said, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:32)
If we follow Him by faith, Christ will give us His strength. In John, Christ said, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” (John 14:27)
If you are depressed and troubled in every way, Christ will provide you with HIS OWN PEACE.
If Christ’s peace will not give you the strength to face boldly your ordeals, I don’t know what will.
If you are a born-again believer, Christ is in you, who is “the hope of glory.” (See Colossians 1:27.)
Finally, how to have Christ’s Spirit in your soul, who will give you strength in the Lord? Well, our Lord’s Spirit will live in you once you give your heart to Jesus by faith—by Christ-centered faith! Do it now.
Do you have other ways to find strength in the Lord that we failed to touch here? Please, let us hear your comments.