Week 50 Day 1

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God as a Source of Strength

Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

Romans 6:13

Yield to the Lord, with simple heart,

All that thou hast, and all thou art:

Renounce all strength, but strength divine,

And peace shall be forever thine.

Young Henry Rankin was a law clerk in Lincoln’s Springfield, Illinois, practice. He and Lincoln reportedly developed a close friendship. Once he asked Lincoln about his belief in the Bible. Lincoln had been going through a tough time and admitted, “I was having serious questionings about some portions of my former implicit faith in the Bible.” But Lincoln’s troubles seemed to have moved him toward God and a stronger belief in God’s Word. “In the midst of these shadows and questionings,” he continued to tell Rankin, “. . . the Scriptures unfolded before me with a deeper and more logical appeal, through these new experiences, than anything else I could find to turn to, or ever before I had found in them.” Lincoln’s sadness turned to joy as he learned to rely on God’s Word. The Bible became a continual source of strength for Lincoln throughout his life from that point on. What is your source for strength? You too can go to God’s Word, like Lincoln, and move out of your shadows and questionings.