“…be strong in the Lord…”

The secret to spiritual warfare is being strong in the Lord! Period!!!!

Yesterday I was listening to Christian radio station and a message by a person on a biblical perspective on our money. The speaker has a ministry that helps people in this area. He started by telling the people that they were not going to hear anything new—no new revelation. He said the problem is following through with what we already know.

We should already know that the secret to being a Christian is growing strong in the Lord! The challenge is in putting that knowledge into practice.

Several years ago I was taking a sailing class through the Windworks Sailing (the sailing club I belong to). For the class we took a 35’ Wildcat sailing catamaran from Seattle to Nanaimo, British Columbia and back. One night we were in a very protected cove and the instructor had the boat in a very specific place and asked us to set the anchor off the bow and then take a stern line to shore (that is how boats are to anchor in that cove to make room for all the boats that would like to be there). Here’s the deal… if we would have anchored there we would have been high and dry at low tide. We had all of the knowledge and tools in the world concerning tides, currents, the contour of the cove’s sea bed, etc. I suggested that we move the boat before anchoring after I looked at the chart (boat term for map) and the tide table. One of the guys (Bob) was furious with me. I was able to convince the other student about the situation but Bob would have none of it. In true democratic style the two of us prevailed. Bob was so angry that we refused to talk with us. You see, if we had anchored where we were his cabin would have had a good breeze flowing through it based on the direction that his cabin’s hatch opened. If we moved the boat he would not have as good of a breeze. Our instructor finally stepped in and announced that we had just been put to the test. He had been in that cove many times and knew that we would be aground at low tide if we stayed at that location. Bob would not speak to us for the rest of the night. We had the knowledge and tools to make a correct decision—we just had to put them into practice!

Each Christ follower needs to be strong in the Lord! The challenge is putting this truth into practice!

Too many Presbyterian Churches do a lousy job of making disciples of Jesus. Evergreen was one of those churches. We are making progress in this area—we have a long way to go.

A few years ago a basketball player showed up to training camp weighing ten pounds more than the year before. The coaches were please because the player had been was too slight (I wish I had that problem). The coaches became dismayed when they would out that the basketball player had put on ten pounds of fat—not muscle! He hadn’t worked out at all—he just ate lots of donuts, cake, cookies and ice cream late at night. So instead of having a single problem (not enough muscle) he had three problems (out of shape, extra fat and not enough muscle).

Sounds like a lot of us Presbyterians!