A young boy about nine years old sat on his front porch, straining with every bit of muscle he had to open a jar of candy. 

But, no matter how hard he tried, the lid wouldn’t budge. Soon, the boy’s father came out of the house and saw his son struggling. He sat down beside him and asked him if was using all his strength to open the jar. The boy said, “Yes, dad, I am.”

Again, the boy tried to twist the lid off the jar, this time sticking it under his arm in order to brace it and try that method. Still, no luck. The father asked once again, “Are you sure you are using all your strength?” The boy was irritated and said to his dad, “Yes, dad! I promise!” Then one final time, he twisted the lid with all the torque he could muster. But, alas, the jar prevailed. 

Then the father took the jar from his son’s hands and said, “No, you’re not.” With a simple flick of the wrist, the father opened the jar and handed it back to his son. Then he told the boy, “Never forget to ask to use my strength. That’s what it’s here for. My strength is your strength, and it’s always available to you.”   

Right before the apostle Paul launches into his famous “Put on the armor of God” passage, he gives a brief but direct instruction: “Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.” This verse makes a very clear statement – the spiritual battles we engage in are not going to be easy. They will require tremendous strength, far more than we have within our frail human faculties. It’s going to require us to use the Lord’s strength as we put on His armor. Paul even uses three different words: “strong,” “mighty,” and “power” to give muscle to the verse. 

Sometimes we get so excited about the different parts of the armor we are called to “put on” – the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, or the sword of the Spirit – that we sometimes blow right past the opening admonition. The Lord doesn’t give us the armor of God to fight our battles in our strength; He gives the armor of God so we can fight our battles in His strength. 

Warren Wiersbe, a well-known pastor and author who passed away in 2019, wrote a book called The Strategy of Satan. In it, he wrote: 

“In my pastoral ministry, I could always tell when a new Christian was starting to mature, because he found himself fighting battles… It came as a shock to the new believer that the Christian life is a battleground and not a playground.”

If the Christian life were lived out on a playground, we might be able to do it within our own strength. Unfortunately, we don’t live our lives on a playground. We have a real enemy who presents real tests and real temptations in a very real world. Thankfully, Paul provides us with real truth to help us out on the battleground of life: “Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.” 

Never forget, just as the dad said to his young son in the illustration above, “His strength is our strength, and it is always available to us.”

Written by Kevin Wood, Guest Contributor