October 29, 2022 … God’s Strength In Our Weakness …

Berry Patch Devotions in 2021 - Day 302 

Devotional Song: ... GO TO THIS LINK ...   Please take the time to take in song and lyrics from Steven Curtis Chapman singing … HIs Strength Is Perfect … poignantly singing of how God will provide His perfect strength to cover our imperfect human weakness. 

==============        

Highlight Passage: … Jeremiah 20:13   [ESV] …  

10 Sing to the LORD!  Praise the LORD!  For though I was poor and needy, He rescued me from my oppressors. 

… In spite of Jeremiah’s weakness and trials, the Prophet was able to in praises to His LORD for rescuing him.                                                

Highlight Passage (Context): …  Jeremiah 20:7-18 [NLT] …  USE THIS LINK … 

…  Jeremiah, in despair, being chosen to be God’s Prophet, in a time of weakness, questions God’s motive for choosing Jeremiah to bring God’s message to a willful nation.                            

===============                                                                     .                                              

Reference Passage: …  Job 1:20-22 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …  

… Job, in his weakness and loss, Job was faithful to his LORD and now willing to blame God.     

Reference Passage: … Isaiah 41:10 [NLT] …  

10 Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.  

… God’s promise to Isaiah and to all HIs faithful followers that He will provide them (US) with his strength to lift us up in times of trial.  

Reference Passage: … Habakkuk 3:19 [NLT] …  

19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength!  He makes me surefooted as a deer, …  able to tread upon the heights.

… God’s Prophet, after questioning God’s ability to correct His willful chosen people, was shown - by God - that He, THE LORD, was in total control, giving Habakkuk the strength to go on.   

Reference Passage: …  1Corinthians 10:13 [NLT] … 

13 The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.

… Paul shows fellow Christians that no matter what we face, … God is faithful to show is the way to deal with life’s challenges.      

Reference Passage: …  2Corinthians 12:9-10 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …  

… Paul, in a time of deep weakness and pain, remembered Jesus’ promise to give him God’s strength to cover his weakness. [PLEASE take in the linked song!].  

                                                                                

My Devotional Journal: Today's Our Daily Bread author, Mike Wittmer … AT THIS LINK …   tells of a missionary, named Drew, who was imprisoned for two years in a country hostile to Christians, … relating that, unlike other Christians who maintained a Job-like faith (see passage in Job 1:20-22 above), Drew felt weak and alone in his circumstances.  

There are many examples, besides Job, of stalwart men of faith in the Bible, who felt abandoned by God’s strength.  Jeremiah was certainly one of those (see <b>highlight passage</b> above).  And yet, as Paul describes in the two Pauline scriptures above, no matter what we face, God is faithful, as He was for Job and Jeremiah and Habakkuk, to provide God’s strength to cover our weakness in dire circumstances.

Perhaps some of my readers - perhaps you - are facing tough times right now.  I’m there right now.  And so I stop to pray that we realize that God’s strength is there to lift us up in our time of need.  As Steven Curtis Chapman sings, … “His strength is perfect, when our strength is gone! … He’ll carry us when we can’t carry on!”                                

My THANKFULNESS: ... Oh, Abba Father, thank You, King Jesus, … for being there to give me Your strength as I feel weak today.             

My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, ... King Jesus, ... . I pray that all reading here will join me, … to carry on, seeking the Lord’s strength to carry us in times of our weakness.  .,,  Amen

=============

Blogger Note:  Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled “Our Daily Bread,” distributed online via email by RBC Ministries.  If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.