Eternity Daily Bible Study No. 178 - Now O God Strengthen My Hands! (Nehemiah 6:9 NKJV) For they all were trying to make us afraid, saying, "Their hands will be weakened in the work, and it will not be done." Now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands. (Proverbs 24:10 NKJV) If you faint in the day of adversity, Your strength is small. Strength is an important factor in success in life and ministry. Satan seeks to discourage and destroy you. The extent to which you can stand, resist and wrestle against the devil will often determine whether your projects fail or whether they succeed. There will be days of adversity and we must be able to be strong and not faint if we are to pass through them to days of victory. How do you react to discouragement, crises and opposition? Do you pray for strength and persevere? Do you lay hold of the problem and push through? The matter of your personal strength will largely determine how much your potential can be made real in life. That is why Moses told Joshua "Be strong and courageous.." and why Nehemiah prays for strength in the work of God. Almost every time we try to build a significant work for God we will face criticism, discouragement and "one trial after another". God may not take away the trials but rather ask us to become strong in the midst of them. God does more through bold, strong and courageous people than through weak, timid and cowardly ones. Cowardice caused the Israelite to back away at Kadesh-Barnea and spend forty years in the wilderness! In the book of Revelation cowards end up in the lake of fire (Rev 21:8). Strong bold people like Caleb and Joshua, Nehemiah and David are commended throughout the Scriptures. They possess the Promised Land. Nehemiah chapter 6 is a story of various attempts to intimidate Nehemiah as he built the wall in Jerusalem. It was a highly insecure situation full of trickery, plots and discouragements. The people had to work with one hand and carry weapons with the other. In the midst of this Tobiah and Sanballat tried to set up Nehemiah to meet with them outside Jerusalem where they could more easily assassinate him. The rumors, threats, plots and tricks would have made the average person give up but they only made Nehemiah more determined to build the wall. His tenacity had a supernatural source in Nehemiah's active prayer life. At the height of the opposition Nehemiah prayed "Now, O God, strengthen my hands". Nehemiah while possessing a strong natural disposition was not a self- made man, but a God-strengthened man. A man of prayer and grace. None of us has the strength, in ourselves, to do the work of God. We are indeed "earthen vessels" so that the glory may be of God. That is why "power is perfected in weakness" ( 2 Corinthians 12:9). (2 Corinthians 12:9 NRSV) but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. But here may seem a contradiction - while we are weak, and while God glorifies Himself in our weakness, yet we should pray for strength. But the strength we pray for must come from God. We must pray to be bold, courageous, strong and forceful servants of God. Paul boasted in his weaknesses - but Paul was not a weak person! Paul was bold, strong and courageous and told Timothy not to be timid. He told the young pastor that the Holy Spirit was not a spirit of timidity but of power, love and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7). Paul acknowledges weakness, so that pride will not inhibit grace, and so that the power of Christ may rest fully on him, so that Paul may become strong! Strong men of faith such as Paul and Nehemiah humbly acknowledge to God their need for strength and then live in the strength that God provides. They are strong yet clothed with humility and conscious of grace. Strength grows with practice and we practice by not giving in. Patient endurance builds strength and character (Romans 5:3-5). When we face a problem in God's service we need to make an emotional and ethical decision to pray for strength and press forward. We must rise up and not let discouragement, anxiety or self-doubt rob us of the victory. Day after day we will face gossip, rumors, insults, hardship, and difficulties. Day after day we must decide to be strong and courageous. This is why an active prayer life and a daily quiet time are so essential. We need to be strengthened by God in the inner man if we are to boldly face the pressures of life. (Ephesians 3:14-21) People with faith are strong. Jesus was strong and authoritative and could set His face like flint, speak with commanding authority and even caused the mob in the Garden to draw back and fall down on the ground with fear (John 18:6). The common portrayal of Jesus as an insipid weakling simply does not accord with the biblical facts. There is nothing wrong with being dominating, strong and forceful - provided that you are also humble and caring. Jesus, Paul, Peter, David, Nehemiah, Moses, Joshua, Elijah, and any others were all powerful, strong and very present as people. They were no pushovers for Satan and they resolutely stood up to wicked men. Some of us have suffered from dominating, forceful people who lacked sanctification. We swore not to be like them, and chose a sensitive, weak, "spiritual" and overly kind disposition instead. We did not want to do to others as we had been done to. But being a "nice guy" just doesn't work. Eventually niceness fails as a life-strategy. I know because I pursued it for a long time. Faith demands strength and forcefulness. Life calls us out of niceness into a more practical lifestyle. If you are like what I was you need to repent of "niceness" and embrace strength, in God, controlled by the Holy Spirit. You will earn a lot more respect that way. You don't need to please or appease dominating people who stand in the way of you doing God's will. You need to pray for strength and stand up to them firmly, consistently and repeatedly. Nehemiah does this again and again, he is never worn down, and he just keeps saying "No", like a cracked record, until his enemies get the point. Young pastors especially need to have a clear sense of what God wants, and then they need to go and do it. Even if a strong, dominating, carnal person opposes them at every turn. There is a time when being nice and cooperative is plain stupid. You must be strong enough not to agree to courses of action that are carnal, wrong or inferior. Christians should be the strongest people on Earth. We should be able to be firm in ourselves, doing that which God has made us and called us and will empower us to do. "Now therefore, O God, strengthen our hands!" Blessings, John Edmiston Were you blessed by Eternity Daily Bible Study? To subscribe just send a blank email to: eternity-dbs-subscribe@strategicnetwork.org Visit the Eternity Daily Bible Study Archives - http://www.aibi.ph/eternity/ Study at the Asian Internet Bible Institute- Free online non-formal, in-service, bible and ministry training: http://www.aibi.ph