Let God Be Your Strength Series

B. The Lord gives you strength.

The Lord is our source of strength not only as He stands with us, but as He gives strength to us. II Timothy 4:17b, “…and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it.”

The Lord gives us strength is many different ways. I don’t like to be away from my family overnight very often. This past Sunday after church, David VanderHamm and I left to go to Illinois so that David could visit my alma mater Lincoln Christian College. It came time for me to say goodbye to Holly and Hope and I was sad. Holly had tears in her eyes. I buckled Hope in her car seat and leaned in to tell her goodbye and that I’d see her in a couple of days. Hope is a affectionate child. She put her little hands on my face and looked me right in the eye. I told her, “I love you. Be a good girl for Mommy while I’m gone.” Hope replied to me, “Daddy- tell me when you need to go potty, go pee pee in the potty. OK?” That kept me going for two days. Everytime I thought about that it brought a smile to my face helped me cope with being away from my family.

The Lord gives you strength. He is your source of strength.

C. The Lord rescues you.

God dispenses His strength to us by rescuing us from dangers and bad situations. II Timothy 4:18, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.”

A newspaper ran this story several years ago. One evening a woman was driving home when she noticed a huge truck behind her that was driving so close behind her that it made her uncomfortable. She tried to speed up, but the truck sped up. She got off the freeway and turned onto main streets trying to lose the truck. But the truck ran a red light to stay behind her. Finally, the woman whipped her car into a service station and bolted out of the car screaming for help. The truck driver also sprung out of his truck and ran toward the woman’s car. He yanked the back door open and pulled out a man hidden in the back seat. From his higher vantage point in his truck, the truck driver had spotted a would be rapist in the woman’s car. The truck driver was not chasing the woman to harm her but to rescue her.

God is able and willing to rescue you and make you strong in your time of weakness. He alone is our source of strength.

Conclusion

When life is tough, we need to know where to look to find strength. Carol Schuller, daughter of evangelist Robert Schuller was involved in a serious motorcycle accident when she was a teenager that left her with only one leg. When she was eighteen, she went on a cruise with her parents. She made no effort to conceal her artificial leg wearing shorts and going swimming. She noticed people staring and could see the curiosity in people’s eyes. In response to the looks she had been getting, she decided to volunteer for the ship’s talent show. When she walked up to the microphone she said this: “If I have one talent, it is this: I can tell you that during that time (after her accident) my faith became very real to me. I look at you girls who walk without a limp, and I whish I could walk that way. I can’t but this is what I’ve learned, and I want to leave it with you: It’s not how you walk that counts, but who walks with you and whom you walk with.”