Biblical Strength

I have never found body building competitions compelling. To me, it is a practice that takes the beauty of the human form and twists it into something grotesque and unattractive. By contrast, however, I’m fascinated by contests like The World’s Strongest Man competitions. There we observe feats of tremendous human strength and endurance. Men are able to lift from the ground items that I cannot even budge.

What is Strength?

Strength in the World

In the opening paragraph, I’m presenting strength as the world sees it. Strength is leverage. It is power. It is dominance. Strength is measured by who can lift the heaviest load, or throw an object farther than anyone else can throw it.

In the business environment, strength is the power or authority to bend circumstances to one’s will. It is intimidation and political/societal sway. It is a healthy bottom line that provides influence and clout where such inducements are needed.

Strength in Scripture

Today, I have embraced the challenge of persuading you that this narrative is the antithesis of reality, because I believe the biblical definition of strength flips the world’s understanding of strength on its head.

The Paradox of Biblical Strength

Biblically speaking, the world’s view of human strength is little more than an illusion or a distraction. True strength, biblical strength, is an attribute of one’s character. It is internal and relational and, most paradoxically, found in the humility of surrender.

Someone who has been (or still is) ill will be told, “You have to build your strength.” An athlete is told they must work that muscle or build that endurance. Effort is required. Long, arduous training sessions are necessary to achieve those strength goals.

As I age, I’m finding that the pursuit of such goals is not only unavailing, it is potentially dangerous. Our bodies break down as time moves forward. Physical prowess has a limited shelf-life. Outward strength abandons us. Just as “beauty is fleeting” but inner beauty never leaves, outward, physical strength is an attribute of youth, but inner strength remains.

I still remember my absurd attempt, around age 50, to engage the P90X Workout Schedule. “It’s just ninety days,” I thought. “I can do that.” By the end of day four, my body was so beat up that I was unable to stand erect for three days straight. I was focusing on the wrong type of strength.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.
– 2 Corinthians 4:16, ESV

Strong in Weakness

The apostle Paul was a man exceedingly gifted by God, and such gifting carries with it the potential for the recipient to become arrogant. To prevent this, Paul was also given an affliction, a “thorn” as he put it, specifically to prevent him from becoming arrogant.¹

Repeatedly, Paul pleaded with God to remove the thorn, but God told Paul that removal of the thorn was not what he needed. All Paul needed was God’s grace.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
– 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, ESV

And right there, we see the paradox. Strength is not found in powering through, plowing ahead. Strength comes through surrendering to God, and letting his grace infuse us. We told to be strong, not in our selves, but “strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.”²

Strong in Grace

You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
– 2 Timothy 2:1, NASB

Be strong in the grace… Grace is being presented as a place of existence. Grace is where we live and move. Grace is that place from which inner strength is born. Grace is what empowers us and enables us to endure. Grace is the arena in which we move and from which strength is born.

The Virtue of Enduring.

Better a patient man than a warrior,
    a man with self-control than one who takes a city.
– Proverbs 16:32

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,
“In returning and rest you shall be saved;
    in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”
– Isaiah 30:15, ESV

Restraint and endurance demonstrates strength. Overcoming chaos and volatility through patience and self-control requires greater strength and character than conquering a city. Waiting and trusting is an active demonstration of confidence. It is here that we are “strengthened with all power, according to [Christ’s] glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.”³ They who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength.⁴

Strong in Trust and Obedience

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.
– Joshua 1:9, ESV

Biblilcally, both courage and strength are inner attributes.

The command above was given to Joshua as he was preparing to lead the Israelites into the promised land. God was not charging Joshua to buff up his musculature, but to be strong in his faith, strong in his trust, strong in his reliance on God.

You will recall that the first “battle” God’s people engaged was the taking of the city of Jericho, and the city was defeated by nothing more than marching around it and blowing horns. This is exactly what God told his people to do—to march around the city once a day for six days, carrying the ark of the covenant and the priests carrying ram’s horns. On the seventh day they were commanded to march around it seven times with the priests blowing the ram’s horns. And following lap number seven, they were to shout, and the walls would fall.

What if the people said, “No, this is a stupid plan!” Pretend you didn’t know the end of the story. Looking at it that way, this is a pretty silly battle plan. But when we consider to whom the battle really belongs, it is the perfect battle plan. Trust, and obey. God says, “march around the city,” and we march around the city. God says, “blow the horns,” and we blow the horns. The strength is not ours. It’s Gods.

Biblical Strength in Historical Examples

Conceptually, everything above sounds nice. But it is more than just a concept. Repeatedly, scripture demonstrates how God looks past the giants, the kings, the military commanders, to elevate those whose strength was internal, forged in moments of crisis, patience, restraint, and endurance.

Gideon⁵

When the massive army of Midian was bearing down on Israel, God came to Gideon, calling him a “mighty man of valor.” When that phrase was spoken to Gideon, he was not leading any army into battle. He was hiding inside a winepress!

Responding to the call of God, Gideon mustered an army of 32,000 men to fight against Midian. God said it was too many, and led Gideon through a systematic reduction in the number of men who would remain to drive out the horde of Midianites. When God was finished, Gideon’s army had a mere 300 men, and they were armed not with spears, bows and swords, but with trumpets, torches and clay pots. Yet they were victorious.

Biblical strength is not about building a cache of resources until victory is guaranteed. Strength is found in trusting the call of God on your life when your resources are laughably inadequate.

David⁶

When Israel demanded a king, and Samuel went searching for that king, he was examining the sons of Jessee. Seeing Eliab, the eldest son, he thought Surely this man is God’s anointed one. He was tall, muscular, a warrior. He looked the part. God rejected him.

“Have you no more sons,” Samuel asked. There was one, the youngest, but he was out tending the sheep. That was David, the man after God’s own heart. He was not tall and stately like his eldest brother, but his heart trusted in the Lord.

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”
– 1 Samuel 16:7, ESV

David’s strength was not in physical stature, a warrior’s armor, or battle sword. David’s strength was in a heart that relentlessly pursued God, a strength built over years of protecting sheep from predators in the wilderness.

Joseph⁷

In a fit of jealous rage, Joseph’s brothers threw him down a well, and later sold him into slavery, bloodying his clothing to fabricate a lie that he had been killed by wild beasts. Joseph had every reason to be hateful and vengeful.

Rather, Joseph trusted God, despite being sold by his own brothers, despite enduring years of imprisonment on fabricated charges. Joseph rose to become the second most powerful man in Egypt. From this position, he had every sliver of political power and leverage necessary to execute a tremendous vengeance on his brothers.

When a famine hit the land of Canaan, and Joseph’s unsuspecting brothers arrived in Egypt to buy food, the opportunity was before him to unleash terrifying wrath, but he did not. By the world’s standard, Joseph should have delivered a crushing retaliation, but Joseph was a man of God, not a man of the world.

Joseph’s strength was found not in destroying his abusers, but in realizing he had the ability to do so yet choosing the path of forgiveness and ultimately, reconciliation with his brothers. Joseph’s strength came from the integrity within that saw the divine purpose for his life’s path. Years of suffering combined to equip him to save both an entire nation of people, and the brothers who tried to kill him.

Jesus

Without question, Jesus could have dominated and wiped out his enemies. I cannot wrap my mind around how much strength it took to prayer, “Father, I really don’t want to go through this. If there’s any other way…yet not as I will, but your will be done.” Saying such a thing required an astonishing level of integrity and strength.

The world does not see it that way, of course. In Jesus’ time, the Roman Empire used crucifixion and viewed crucifixion as the ultimate display of weakness, humiliation and defeat. The reality, however, is that it was the ultimate display of divine strength. Jesus won through self-sacrifice rather than violent slaughter of his opposition.

Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might.

Blessings upon you, my friends.

Victoriously in Christ!

– damon

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1. 2 Corinthians 12:7
2. Ephesians 6:10
3. Colossians 1:11
4. Isaiah 40:31
5. Judges 6 & 7
6. 1 Samuel 16 &17
7. Genesis 37 & 39-46