Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
“Now I know that the LORD saveth His anointed; He will hear him from His holy heaven with the saving strength of His right hand.”
Psalm 20:6
How many times have you seen someone who knew what is right decide to do something else instead? How many times, in your own past, have you been guilty of the same sin? Yes, it is sin to know what is right and then fail to do it. James wrote “To him who knows to do good and does not do it, it is sin.”
It is human nature to fall short of righteous conduct, even when our minds tell us that we are coming short of it. In his younger years, the apostle Paul struggled with this frustrating spiritual weakness, and in his letter to the saints in Rome (chapter 7), he reminisced about the feelings of shame and helplessness it brought upon him. At the conclusion of that chapter, he rhetorically asked, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me?” And then he gave the precious answer that he had discovered: “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
What a difference Jesus makes! How wonderful it is to be given the inner strength, finally, to do what we know is right! That is no small thing, my Reader. It is no small blessing to be set free from the dominion of sin. We should praise God for the strength He has given us to love that which deserves our love, and for the strength to be faithful to what we know deserves all our fidelity. We once were helpless, but “when we were without strength, Christ died for the ungodly.” The strength Christ gives us saves us from ourselves; it saves us from the dictates of our own base nature. His is real saving strength, and it is given freely to those who seek God for it in the name of Jesus. Praise God!
We are no longer without help or strength. Through his Spirit, God has made saving spiritual strength available to us who once were under the dominion of our own sinful nature. We had been overcome by sin, and we were the servants of sin. Now, in Christ, we are “more than conquerors”! We have been made free from sin and have become servants of God and His righteousness, and that has made us very happy! We are now capable of living so full of God’s love and life that we no longer are bound by fear of either death or of the coming Judgment.
In Christ, we now have hope of meeting God in peace because “in the strength of the Lord is strong confidence.” This is God’s “saving strength”, and it is the gift of God to all who believe.