"Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong." (1 Corinthians 16:13)
The Lord is speaking to us once again and commanding us to be strong, which is the need of the hour. We need strong Christians these days. We need Christians who are spiritually and mentally strong. There are various things we have to do in order to be strong. Firstly, we must be fed with solid food from the word of God. Secondly we must be anointed by the Holy Spirit.
But these two experiences are not sufficient to make us strong. Of course we cannot be strong without rich food from the Word of God and we cannot be strong without the anointing of the Holy Spirit. These two are our imperative necessities. But these two alone are not enough to lead us into perfect spiritual health and strength.
This statement of mine may come as a shock to many of my readers. There may be many to differ with me at this point. For such, I'd like to point out that David had a fall in his life in spite of having a thorough knowledge of the scriptures and in spite of being anointed mightily by the Holy Spirit. Didn't David know the scriptures? Of course, he knew. Was he not anointed by the Holy Spirit? Of course, he was! Yet, we know that he had a fall! That's the reason I'm saying that knowledge of the scriptures and the anointing of the Holy Spirit alone are not sufficient to make us strong.
Then what else do we need? 2 Timothy 2:1 gives us the answer - "You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus" That's the point! We need the grace of Jesus Christ to become strong. How do we become strong by the grace of Jesus Christ?
We need to rely upon the grace of God every moment of our life, if we want to be strong. This necessity springs out of the fact that the Devil, our arch enemy, is the accuser who accuses us before God's presence night and day. He stands before the throne of God to accuse us of our sins, mistakes, transgressions and our shortcomings. God doesn't listen to the Devil when he accuses us. Disappointed by God's unfailing love for us, the Devil comes down and accuses us directly before our own conscience. We, being the children of the Holy God, love holiness and hate sin. When the Devil reminds us of our own weak moments, we feel so ashamed and sad and become totally depressed. We are so sad about our own sin that we readily agree with Satan regarding the accusation against us. We say to him, "You are right Satan! I have really committed this sin. You are right when you say that I'm unworthy. What to do? I'm so weak and prone to fall in temptation. I can't help it Satan! I'm bad, I'm fallen and I'm unclean and I've to remain this way. I can't become better. I don't even have face to go before God."
We think that it is very godly to have such feelings. Of course, a godly person must regret his own weaknesses, but, as someone has rightly observed, "Too much of anything is good for nothing". Even our regrets for our sin will weaken us if they go out of proportion and beyond our control. Of course, we must be sorry for our sin, but we should not be so sorry as to make the Devil happy! We must be sorry in the presence of God for our sin, not in the presence of the Devil. When God shows our sin, we must confess and repent from it. But when the Devil talks about our sins, we must talk back to the Devil in positive faith and confidence. We must immediately take shelter under the grace of Jesus Christ and tell the Devil that, we are still righteous before God because of the grace of Jesus Christ. We must tell the enemy that, our righteousness is a person, not our own conduct. We are righteous even when we are fallen. When we thus hide ourselves under the grace of Jesus, we become strong spiritually. Of course, we need Word of God and anointing, but we also need to depend upon the grace of God. Those who depend upon the grace of God will be strong and those who depend upon their own self righteousness will be weak in the spiritual warfare. May God help us to understand this truth and become strong spiritually.
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Bakht Singh (1903 - 2000)
He is often regarded as one of the most well-known bible teachers and preachers and pioneers of the Indian Church movements. He was India's foremost evangelist, preacher and indigenous church planter who founded churches based on New Testament principles. He began a worldwide indigenous church-planting movement in India that eventually saw more than 10,000 local churches. Norman Grubb missionary statesman, author and teacher: "In all my missionary experience I think these churches on their New Testament foundations are the nearest I have seen to a replica of the early church and a pattern for the birth and growth of the young churches in all the countries which we used to talk about as mission fields."Life of prayer. Brother Bakht Singh was a man of prayer. He spent hours upon his knees in communion with the Lord seeking the Lord's mind regarding His will concerning the work and ministry. Therefore, the Lord also honored him and blessed him beyond any human understanding. This is one of the reasons why the Lord has used him so mightily for the edification of His Body and for the extension of His glorious kingdom both in India and abroad.