Paul is coming to the end of a great letter to the Ephesians. Throughout this letter Paul gave the believers some practical advice on how to become a strong Christian. After all of his exhortation, he ends with this from the NIV. "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power."
First of all, I want you to notice what Paul DOESN'T say. He doesn't say be strong in your church. He doesn't say be strong behind your pastor. He doesn't say be strong in a particular type of doctrine. And he certainly didn't say to be strong in your opinion. However, if you become strong in the Lord, your church will become stronger, your pastor will become stronger, you'll know the Word of God inside and out instead of just one side. And your opinions you'll learn to keep to yourself.
Before we can become strong in the Lord, we need to know what the Lord Jesus Christ was strong in Himself. Then, we'll understand where we have to change. In changing we'll become more like Him. In becoming more like Him we will automatically get stronger "in His mighty power".
First of all, Jesus was strong in His relationship with His Father. He knew how much His Father longed to have a relationship with all of mankind. Of course, it wasn't hard to tell that neither the synagogues nor the temple in Jerusalem were ministering to the lost and hurting. Just like today, most churches are not much more than social circles catering to the whims of a selected few. Did you ever notice that Jesus spent most of His ministry outside of the church? He took His Father's heart to the market place, to people's homes, to the seashore and to the mountains. He even took His Father's heart to the tombs of Gadara. His Father's will was His driving force and nothing else.
A strong relationship with the Father only comes through intimate conversations with Him. This goes beyond our prayers and centers on heartfelt conversations with our Heavenly Father. Our prayers a lot of times are made up of things we've prayed over and over again or things we have heard prayed over and over again. A real relationship with the Father comes when we get alone with Him and open ourselves up to His conviction and cleansing power. When we shut up and begin to listen, we might find out that we've been doing some things the wrong way for a long, long time. For sure, when we spend time listening to our Heavenly Father we will find out what we REALLY should have been doing all this time.
Right along with that, Jesus was strong in His Father's love. He walked in Godly compassion. Let's take that another step further. You might say that He was the Author of pre-forgiveness. Take a look at the facts. One of His disciples was a hated tax collector. (Luke 5:27-32) In John 8, He never mentioned an adulteress's sin. He just said don't do it any more. He told Peter that he should forgive someone 490 in one day if he was asked to.
To be strong in the Lord is to be strong in compassion. It means to love the unlovable. It means loving your spouse, children and parents when they don't deserve it. It means loving that church member. It means loving the sinner. It means to treat people as if they had never done anything wrong even though they might be the worst sinner in the world. For example: read John the 13th chapter. This is the chapter where Jesus washed the disciples feet. You might not have ever realized it but Jesus washed Judas' feet even though He knew that Judas was going to betray Him. That's a lot to think about, isn't it? Let me say it again. To be strong in the Lord means to be strong in His compassion to others.
Jesus was strong in the Word of God. In Matthew 5:18 He said that not one dotting of the letter 'i' or crossing of the letter 't' would pass from the law. Every word of God was going to come to pass just like God said it would. He was adamant about God's Word. Without steadfastly believing every Word of God, Jesus would not have been able to rise from the dead like God's Word said He would.
These are just a few of the ways Jesus was strong. Before we can become the Children of God that we ought to be, we have to strengthen ourselves in these areas. The stronger our relationship is with the Father, the more His compassion reaches through us and the more His Word manifests in our lives.
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