instead of temptation and sin
You do not test the resources of God until you try the impossible.
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we stopped being overwhelmed by all of our problems and instead had such a close relationship with God that we allowed His power to infuse us to make changes in our homes, families, communities, workplaces, churches and nations?
God has so changed my heart that I don’t want to spend time being overwhelmed by the difficult circumstances in my life; they will always be there in one way or another. Usually we get through one trial only to find there is another one waiting. One problem resolves, and there is always another on the horizon. In fact, I’ve heard it said that at any given time, a person is either entering into a trial, in a trial, or coming out of a trial. Perhaps this sounds pessimistic or negative, but it is indeed a reality. We will never have a problem-free, trial-free life. That’s exactly why it’s critical to stop living in a state in which we are overwhelmed by the problems in our lives. Remaining stuck in that frame of mind reflects an immature faith that doesn’t take into account the glorious and powerful God we serve.
Jesus certainly didn’t live a trouble-free existence. But He relied on the goodness and power of God throughout His lifetime on earth. Jesus chose to be overwhelmed by God and not by the trials and evil that He faced on a daily basis.
These trials were multiple and never-ending. Consider this list: He was tempted by Satan for 40 days and nights; He was constantly questioned, ridiculed and mocked by the religious leaders of the day; He was confronted with wickedness and demons in many of the places that He went to minister; He was betrayed by someone close to Him; He sweated great drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane; He was arrested and beaten ruthlessly; He was subjected to an illegal trial; He was spat on; He was rejected by His own people; He was separated from His heavenly Father for our sake; He bore the iniquities and sin of all people, even though He was innocent; and He was crucified on a cross—suffering an agonizing death. Yet through it all, Jesus loved, ministered and never faltered. Why? Because He was overwhelmed by His heavenly Father.
So here are my questions for you:
Marvel with me over these truths and promises from the book of Isaiah:
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint (Isa. 40:28-31).
The God who made the heavens and the earth does not faint. Nothing overtakes Him or saps His strength. On the other hand, we humans experience many moments when we grow faint. We get to a point at which we feel like we just can’t handle another day. We find ourselves exhausted and worn out, tired of thinking, and weary of relating—and sadly, it doesn’t take much for us to feel this way. In fact, we can get so overwhelmed that when someone takes a parking space we had our eye on, we explode. That’s how uptight and stressed out we are. But is that what God wants in our lives? No, He wants us to use the power He gives us—His power—to take our eyes off of the “stuff” that is going on around us and to focus instead on Him. It is God who gives power to the weak and strength to those who are exhausted.
Are you feeling weak? God will give you power to rise above the obstacles in your path. Feeling exhausted? God will give you the strength you need to keep going.
There is no reason for us to be “weak” Christians, walking around with our heads hanging low, crying, “Woe is me!” The key to overcoming weakness, sin, temptation and weariness is to wait on the Lord. That means focusing on intimacy with God by reading His Word daily, communicating with Him through prayer, fellowshipping with other believers, and setting our minds on His greatness rather than our problems. The Scripture in Isaiah is crystal-clear: When we wait on the Lord, our strength is renewed, we rise above our problems, we run and don’t grow weary, and we walk without becoming faint.
Jeremiah 12:5 poses the question: “If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses?” In other words, if we are overwhelmed by the relatively small, everyday problems in life, how are we going to be able to handle the bigger, foundation-shaking issues that will likely come our way? God is asking Jeremiah, “What are you going to do, Jeremiah? You’re beginning to complain about what’s happening in your life. Do you see the problem, or do you see Me? Are you focusing on the situation and how tired you are, or are you looking at the strength I’ll give you to overcome it? And by the way, Jeremiah, I’ll never give you anything that I won’t also give you the power to overcome. You have the ability, through Me, to do great things and go far beyond what you think is possible.” That’s the attitude God desires to ring loudly in our hearts.
Some of the battles we confront are of our own making. But we also face a real enemy, Satan, whose goals are to deter us in our faith and destroy our walk with the Lord. If Satan came after Jesus, he will surely come after us. But Jesus dealt with Satan in a powerful way; Matthew 4:10 recounts what Jesus said to His enemy: “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” Jesus spent 40 days in the desert without food, and when He was tired and hungry, Satan began his attack. Isn’t that true to form? Usually we face the greatest attacks from the enemy when we are tired, stressed and battling significant problems. Satan almost always ambushes us when we are at our most vulnerable.
Even though Jesus was physically weak from hunger, He had the spiritual power to resist Satan’s temptations. He didn’t shout; He didn’t call down thunder and lightning; He didn’t display a huge emotional outburst. Instead He forcefully countered Satan’s lies with the truth of God’s Word. In the same way, through the power of the Holy Spirit residing in us, no matter how physically, emotionally or mentally weak we may feel, we can resist the attacks of the enemy through the truth of God’s Word.
First Peter 5:8 urges us: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” We must be aware of spiritual warfare; it’s critical to understand when we are being attacked by spiritual forces of darkness. The devil’s intentions are to destroy our walk with the Lord. He plans to wreak havoc in our lives. This doesn’t mean that we should be afraid, or that Satan is behind everything bad that happens to us. Still, being aware of the enemy’s tactics and knowing the truth of God’s Word are vital.
An important question to ask in every circumstance is this: “What is the will of God for me in this situation?” We know that it is wrong to steal, lie, commit adultery or fornication, hurt someone, slander, gossip, lust, and so on. So when we find ourselves being tempted in an area that can lead to sin, we must stand firm on the truth of God’s Word and do what is right. The apostle James instructs, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (Jas. 4:7). Notice that the verse says “resist” and not “dabble with” or “flirt with.” Too often we play with temptation instead of resisting it. Is it any wonder the devil does not flee from us?
I sometimes hear this question: “But, Pastor Steve, how do we ‘resist’ when the temptation is so strong?” The answer is that we submit ourselves to God, wholly and completely. We choose to do God’s will instead of our own. We seek to please God instead of our flesh. God is committed to giving us the power to resist the devil and temptation when we are submitting and surrendering ourselves to Him. But trying to wage this battle against the enemy through our own strength will indeed lead to failure.
In Ephesians 6:11-12, the apostle Paul exhorts believers to “put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” In multiple places, the Scriptures make it clear that we have an enemy who is seeking to ruin our lives and especially to destroy our fellowship with God. He uses lies to try to turn us away from our heavenly Father: “You know God doesn’t love you. If He loved you, He would have never allowed these struggles to happen.”
It is critical to counter the lies of the enemy with God’s truth: “No, God does love me, and He wants to work in and through my life. He will use these trials to bring about His good will.”
We must stop listening to the lies of the enemy and rely on the truth of God’s Word instead. God does not want us to be overwhelmed with problems. God does not want us to be stressed out or be an emotional basket case. Rather, the Lord wants us to immerse ourselves in Him, so that we have His peace and joy regardless of the troubles and circumstances we find ourselves facing.
I read an interesting story recently about the release procedure for patients in a mental hospital. In a decent-sized room, the doctor would turn on a faucet and hand the patient a mop. If the patient immediately began to mop, attempting to clean up the mess without first turning off the spigot, he or she would not be released. This was evidence that the patient was not thinking through the situation clearly, or that he or she could not put two and two together.
The reality is that many of us, even Christians, do this in our spiritual lives. We are given a mop of truth, and we try to use it to clean up our mess—but we have not turned off the faucet of evil pouring into our hearts and lives. Like this mental-hospital patient, we disqualify ourselves from obtaining our freedom. God’s power is available to us to conquer our weaknesses, to resist temptations, and to defeat the enemy, but we must say no to sin and yes to God.
Practically speaking, how does the power of God work in our lives? Let’s examine eight examples from Scripture that show just how God’s power helps us on a day-to-day basis.
Genesis 28:15-16 shares a beautiful promise from the Lord: “‘Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.’
“Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.’”
Just as He was with Jacob, God is with us wherever we go. He’s with us at church, at home, at work, in the hospital and in the car. No matter where we go, the Lord is right there with us—He never lets us out of His sight. That can either make us feel completely secure, or it can make us nervous, depending on the types of things we do and the places we visit. Too often, we don’t realize that God is right here with us in this place.
God promised that He would be with Jacob wherever he went, and that He would bless him and take care of him. Now remember, Jacob had sinned. He cheated his own brother, Esau, out of his inheritance and, along with his mother, deceived his father in the process. We rightly might wonder why God would promise these things to Jacob after he sinned the way he did, but beautifully, God promises the same things to us. No matter who we are or what we have done, it is God’s very nature to take care of us. The Lord has promised that He will never leave us or forsake us. God’s keeping power holds us in every situation. Even when we are not tuned in to God, He is tuned in to us. God wants to bless us; even though we don’t deserve it, He is committed to us.
King David poetically shared this prayer to God in Psalm 17:8: “Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me under the shadow of Your wings.” Why did King David ask God to keep him as the apple of His eye? What does this mean? The apple of an eye is the centerpiece, so to speak—the sensitive part of the eye that needs to be protected. What David is saying here is that God is sensitive toward us. He cares for us, and we are His centerpiece—His special creation.
Sometimes we blame God for the happenings in our lives—or we believe that He doesn’t understand our situation or care about our feelings—but that is far from the truth. The Lord looks upon us as a father lovingly looks upon his child. God shares with the hearts of His children: “Listen, nothing is going to touch you. I have a heart toward you. I will keep you as the apple of My eye. You don’t think the details are important to Me, but they are.”
It was a struggle being away from my church for eight months. I spent a lot of time asking myself, What if the people in my church leave? What about my leaders? I haven’t been available for them as I should. I had to trust these details and many others to God’s hand. It was a struggle to believe that there was good that would come from my being in the hospital for eight months. It was a struggle for my wife to experience yet another season in life during which I was laid up.
The key for me then was the same as it is for all of us in our difficulties: We must take one day at a time, constantly choosing to believe with all our heart that the Lord makes everything beautiful in His time (see Eccles. 3:11). Scripture tells us that “all things work together for good” for those who are called by His name (see Rom. 8:28). When I was going through my long trial, the Lord gave me specific Scriptures for blessing and strength, like Psalm 84:11, which promises, “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.”
Another verse God gave me, specifically for the pain I was enduring, was Psalm 119:71, which says, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes.” I remember reading this Scripture verse and thinking, Lord, did I hear You right—I need to be afflicted in order to learn something? What if I try listening a little better next time? Finally, the Lord drew my attention to Psalm 73:28, which says, “But it is good for me to draw near to God; I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all Your works.”
It was absolutely critical for me to draw closer to the Lord during this season; as I did, I realized that if I was seeking Him, He would never take my church or my wife away from me. In fact, just as He did for Job, He would give me everything back and then some! God works in all areas of our lives and does not miss one thing—not one detail gets by Him. Because God is sovereignly in control, all the details of our lives have a way of working out for His glory and for our blessing. We matter to God. His power keeps us as the apple of His eye.
Psalm 31:20 expresses the psalmist’s gratefulness to God: “You shall hide them in the secret place of Your presence from the plots of man; You shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.” It’s not necessary to go up into the mountains to get right with God. We don’t even have to leave our house. The presence of God is in us, around us, under us, before us and for us at all times. When people come against us, God’s presence hides us and serves as our shelter.
Do you ever yearn for a hiding place away from the troubles, away from the difficult people, and away from your own heartaches? God serves as our shelter. His presence wraps around us and shields us from the day-to-day situations that can rob us of His joy. In fact, the Bible tells us that in His presence is the fullness of joy (see Ps. 16:11).
Are you overwhelmed? Cry out to God and say, “Bring me close to Your heart, Lord, and hide me in Your shelter, for I am discouraged and overwhelmed.”
He will respond, “You have a secret place to hide right here, right now, and that is in My presence.”
These marvelous verses from Scripture should encourage all of us:
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:6-7).
Just as God keeps our hearts in Him by His power, He will also keep our minds steadfast and at peace. In other words, our minds do not have to run amok with chaotic thoughts and paranoia. The Bible tells us that “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7). We don’t have to become paranoid. We don’t have to read into things or blow things out of proportion. We don’t have to think the worst. Instead, we should allow God to heal our minds with the blood of Jesus Christ.
How do we do this? The Bible declares that we can bring every thought under the captivity of the Spirit (see 2 Cor. 10:5). In other words, when a thought comes into your mind and stirs up anxiety or fear, you can stop it from going any further by the Spirit of God. God’s power will help you rein in your thoughts and bring them together so they don’t multiply like crazy. Isaiah 26:3 shares a beautiful promise: “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.”
No matter what we go through or experience, when we focus on the Lord and keep our minds on Him, we will enjoy perfect peace—a peace that trusts God and is calm in the midst of tribulation.
The apostle Peter defined another way we are kept by God when he described the readers of his first epistle as those “who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:5). What makes us persevere in the faith? Is it our own strength? No, we can’t keep ourselves going. It is the power of God Himself, who keeps us on the path and holds us up. When we’re ready to give up, God gives us the strength to hang on. It is God’s power that overwhelms us and enables us to do what’s right. Most importantly, it is God’s power that keeps us in Him to the very end. When you’ve trusted in Him, your salvation is secure. You can’t lose it. When you accept Jesus Christ into your heart, your name is written in the Book of Life. God will make sure that you do indeed cross that finish line into eternal life with Him.
Before Jesus went to the cross, He prayed a beautiful prayer for all believers—both those who were already surrounding Him and those who would come to know Him in the ages ahead: “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one” (John 17:14-15). Life can get rough for Christians. It can be difficult and challenging. But God has given us power to overcome the temptations, trials and discouragement we face.
Notice that in His prayer, Jesus does not ask His Father to take Christians out of the world (in other words, out of the mess that sin has produced in our world), but to keep them from the evil one. Although I must admit that I often would like just to be taken out of this sin-filled world, it is comforting to know that the Lord has His seal on us, and that the enemy of our souls has no power whatsoever over us.
As a Christian, you cannot be demon-possessed or controlled by Satan. There is nothing that the devil can do to you apart from God’s allowance. No matter how evil our world gets, when you are a believer in Jesus Christ, the evil will not overcome, infiltrate, persuade or control you. The disciples came to know this power of God in a very real way, and we can be assured that the same power is upon us and keeping us from the evil one.
Jude 1:24 shares the comforting promise that our great God “is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.” God’s power keeps us from falling away from Him. Does that mean we won’t have times when we succumb to sin or when we struggle? No, it doesn’t mean that. It does mean that God will make sure you finish the race of your faith. Jesus told Peter, “Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you” (Luke 22:31-32). Now, if Jesus is praying for Peter, is it likely Peter is going to fall away? No. The truth is, Jesus is praying for each of us. When we have had it, God is going to encourage us. When we want to quit, God will make sure that we don’t. And when we are backsliding but keeping silent about our sin, God will bring us back because He’s committed to us. This is a great God.
Unfortunately, we get overwhelmed by our problems because we don’t talk about our great God. We talk about ourselves all the time—our problems, our woes, and all the issues we dislike. Rather than being overwhelmed with self, how about being overwhelmed by the greatness of our God?
What a gift it is that God holds our hand through our entire journey on this earth! Isaiah 42:6 says, “I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles.”
Think about that for a moment. We don’t walk alone on our journey through life. We walk hand in hand with God. When we hold hands with our spouses or our girlfriends or boyfriends, we feel connected and comforted, don’t we?
Well, the Creator of the universe loves you and holds your hand each step of the way on the journey from birth to death. Doesn’t that bring you great comfort and assurance? He will hold your hand.
I remember visiting Korea some time ago and walking with a high-end government official who would be similar to our vice president. As we walked, he reached down and held my hand; I will admit I felt very uncomfortable. That custom was a part of their culture, but it was difficult for me to be at ease with a man holding my hand! Every time I tried to break loose, the guy just held my hand tighter. When it comes to God, however, would you like Him to take His hand off of you, or would you rather He held your hand tightly?
I challenge each of us to meditate on these eight distinct ways—as well as on the corresponding Scripture verses—in which God’s power upholds and sustains us on a day-to-day basis. We must get to know this wonderful God of ours and allow Him to overwhelm us with His power. As we do, we will notice just how much our troubles will diminish.
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. What is the key to overcoming weakness, sin, temptation and weariness?
2. Satan would love to deter us in our faith and destroy our walk with the Lord. If Satan came after Jesus in the wilderness, he will surely come after us as well. When does Satan usually attack us, and how can we resist him?
3. List the eight distinct ways, illustrated in Scripture, in which God’s power helps us on a daily basis.
4. How does God keep us from the evil one?
PRAYER
Thank You, Lord, that I am the apple of Your eye. Thank You that You hold me steady by Your righteous right hand and will never let me go. Though troubles will come in this life, I know that You will never leave me to face them by myself. Everything that I have need of is found in You. With You being for me and alongside me, we are a majority against the enemy. You alone have the power to deliver me out of all my troubles. Overwhelm me with Your power, I pray. Do a mighty work in me so You can do a mighty work through my life. Thank You that You do not faint or grow weary. Thank You that Your power is the same yesterday, today and for all of my tomorrows. Amen.