A whole heart part: strength
By Jon Walker
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind …. Luke 10:27 (NIV)
No doubt it sounds strange, but in order to love God with all your strength, you have to admit you are weak.
By doing this, you acknowledge God is the true source of your strength, and that in your weakness, he is strong. You become strong as you become totally dependent upon him, allowing his strength to work through you.
As God shows his strength through you, you’ll find yourself doing things you never thought possible. God promises you can do all things through him as he gives you his strength. (Philippians 4:13) You’ll take steps of faith you never thought possible, and you’ll love others in a way you never imagined as God supplies you with supernatural strength and energy.
Tell God you need his strength, and really mean it this time. When you try to love and serve others with just your strength, you’ll inevitably fail. And that’s OK, because God wants you to fail in your own strength so you’ll start to rely upon his strength.
Then, love God with all his strength. God knows you won’t be able to love him with all your strength until you become dependent upon his strength to do so. You simply can’t do it through your own energy or strength. God knows you’ll come to realize this yourself and, at that point, you’ll be faced with a very clear, but difficult choice: Keep-on keeping-on in your own strength, wondering why this abundant-life thing just doesn’t work, or take the Nestea plunge into a deep-end dependence on God’s strength.
If you’d like to receive these devotionals regularly, you can sign-up at www.gracecreates.com/subscribe/. Jon Walker writes from www.gracecreates.com. He is a Zondervan author, and the former writer/editor of the Purpose Driven Life On-Line Devotionals. This devotional is copyrighted 2008 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.
