Heavy Lifting

When the battles of life come, we can place our trust in the One who possesses extraordinary might and desires to show Himself faithful to His people, out of His great love and for His glory.  1st John 4 states:
2 By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,
3 and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.
4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

We have powerful resources that are available to us, and we are promised in Scripture that we can be victorious over sin, because Jesus defeated its power through His resurrection.  Because He is alive, we can know that He lives in and through us.  When there are spiritual strongholds that have infiltrated or spiritual opposition that has infected our lives, we can release the power of the Spirit of God, studying and speaking the Word of God, so that Christ may be large in us.

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The Bible promises us that we have the strength of the Lord that is available to us, and we connect to
it as we stop depending on ourselves and rely on Him. Ephesians 3 says:
20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,
21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Talk about strength.  A 16-year-old young man in Ohio was working in his yard the other day when he heard his neighbor calling out for help, according to an article at the Christian Headlines website, which said CBN News reported that the neighbor had been trapped under a Volkswagen Passat.

The teenager, Zac Clark, lifted the 3,000-pound car off the neighbor enough to allow his mother and and the neighbor's wife to pull the man out.  Zac believes that perhaps the car fell because the jack "broke or slipped."  The Christian Headlines report goes on to quote Zac:

“He had a couple of cracked ribs and his face was messed up pretty bad, but the doctors told him if I wasn't there, then he'd be dead," he said.

“I was thankful that I was put in the opportunity to be able to save someone's life. I thank God for letting me be able to do that."

His football team at Clear Fork High School, where Zac plays left guard, noted his heroic act, and his coach said, "He has just a huge heart," adding, "Here's a young man who's been through tragedy himself with his father passing away last summer, and he didn't hesitate at all and saved somebody's life."

How about that supernatural strength that was apparently deployed in this instance?  We may not be able to do feats of strength like the Power Team or Team Impact or even lift a three-thousand pound VW, but we know a God who can do mighty things and offers us His strength.

And, when the unexplainable occurs, perhaps we just need to look to the Lord and see how He can do incredible things.  The book of Acts, for example, shows us how ordinary people did extraordinary things.  We can believe the Scriptures, which tell us that God can do incredible things, according to the power that is within us.

So, if we feel we're up against a wall, with the weight of the world upon us, we realize that we cannot lift that weight and bust through that wall on our own - we can depend on the Lord to give us the strength to fight back.  And, when the enemy shows up to try to defeat us, we can rely on the One who is greater.