Struggling, but getting stronger!

For many years, my favorite preacher to listen to on the radio has been Chip Ingram (http://livingontheedge.org/).  While I still love listening to him, a very good friend of mine has recently gotten me hooked to listening to Steven Furtick at Elevation Church (http://www.elevationchurch.org/).  

Every Monday I spend the day cooking our meals for the week so that I don't have to worry about cooking every day.  While I'm cooking, I listen to his sermons.  After every sermon, I'm so pumped up, I feel like I just attended a Beth Moore conference!  He is funny, he is creative, but mostly--he preaches God's Word with passion and intensity.  So there you go--that's my sales pitch to go and listen to his sermons on-line...you won't regret it!

Lastly, let me leave you with something he said that I just love.  Often, when you ask someone at church how they're doing, you often get one of two extreme answers.  Someone can be on the verge of divorce or bankruptcy, yet they will give this typical, masked response: 'Just fine!' or 'Great!'  The other extreme is--in an effort to be real and truthful--they'll say, 'I'm really struggling.' 

While admitting you're struggling is definitely better than pretending nothing is wrong, what about saying:  'I'm struggling, but I'm getting stronger.'  

I love that.  Love, love, love the hope and faith of that answer!  For if we are truly going to Christ daily with our difficulties, struggles and hurts, isn't it true--isn't it a promise, even--that Christ meets us in the struggle and strengthens us as we walk through it?

So I leave you with the challenge today, that whatever present overwhelming situation you are in, that you would walk forward in full- fledge belief that you don't have to sit in it.  YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SIT IN THE STRUGGLE.  You can be struggling, but Christ can be simultaneously making you stronger--bringing you step by step out of it!  

Amen and Amen!

Psalm 119:45: 'I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.'

John 8:36 - "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed."

John 16:33 - "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD."