Isaiah 40:28-31 (NLT) 28 Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. 29 He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. 30 Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. 31 But those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.
Psalm 84:1-7 (NIV) How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty! 2 My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. 3 Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young-- a place near your altar, O LORD Almighty, my King and my God. 4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you. Selah 5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. 6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. 7 They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.
Strength to Strength
1. Strength is not stiff
Tenderness > Toughness
2. Strength is not defined in a moment.
3. Strength comes from grace.
Grace may also be defined as supernatural strength.
2 Timothy 2:1 (NIV) My son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
4. Strength is perfected in weakness.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (NIV) 7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power(strength) is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
“His strength is fulfilled when adversity makes us weak”
Psalm 28:8 (NIV) The LORD is the strength of his people.
“The moment when we can admit our strength is insufficient is the moment we begin to see His strength displayed.”
5. Trust activates supernatural strength.
“You don’t earn Grace you trust it.”
“Trust provides the thrust.”
Zechariah 4:6 (NIV)’Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty.