"Through Thick and Thin"

"He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; He burneth the chariot in the fire." (Psalms 46:9) Just a few examples of God's strength in dealing with our battles, yes? Maybe; but then again, if God is so good in the little things and in the smallest little details, why would He not also deal with the little things that bother us and cause us to stumble? In other words, He has already won the war, so why would He leave the items of our warfare unattended? If God has done what He has done to defeat sin and death, isn't it very possible that He has also provided the way that we can be holy? God does not ask us to do anything that we cannot do! Do you trust God enough to believe that every thing He tells you to do, you can do? Sometimes I don't think that I do; maybe even most times, I doubt that I am able to "be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might", mostly because "I am weak and without any strength". One of the highlights of my teaching tonight is going to be from Romans 5:2, where Paul speaks about "this grace wherein we stand". The main point of my message is going to be about standing in grace, which actually speaks to the fact that His grace not only saved us, but it is His grace that keeps us in a right standing with Him. Paul says in Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." The other side of that coin is, I can do nothing in or of myself! Why do we always start out in His strength and then think we have power in our own strength? Do we think God has fixed our brokenness and now we are empowered to walk in the flesh? I am thinking that surrender means that we have no more power in and of our own, don't you think? It's kind of like: Get down and stay down! That needs to be our attitude towards any strength we think we have in our flesh, because there is nothing that we can do of ourselves. Think about those two simple commands that Jesus said we need to live by, "to love God with all of our might, and to love our neighbor as ourselves"; so simple, yet oh so hard...
 "If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God's secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn't love other, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn't love others, I would have gained nothing." (1 Corinthians 13:1-3 NLT)