A Strong Life

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, September ninth. You've probably heard stories of famous people who started strong, but who ended up destroying their lives. Avoid making similar mistakes with biblical principles for living a strong life. You can have a strong body and have a weak life. You can have a strong life, have a weak body. But you can't have a strong life and a strong body. All of us know what constitutes a strong body, but what constitutes a strong life?

What is a strong life? So I want you to turn to a very familiar passage that just perfectly describes what we're talking about. And that's the seventh chapter of Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount. And in the beginning in the twenty-fourth verse, and so I want us to look at this in light of a strong life. And so Jesus said in verse twenty-four, Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against the house, and yet it did not fall, for it had been built and founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rains fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house, and it fell, and great was its fall.

When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teachings, for He was teaching them as one having authority and not as their scribes. When I look in the Scriptures and I think about all the verses in the Bible that talk about life and so forth, here's a perfect picture of a weak life and a strong life. And remember this, every one of us is still building our life, whether you're sixteen or seventy-six, you're still building your life. And what we are on the inside makes all the difference in the world.

And I think many people at first may fool you about the lifestyle they look like. But then when the storms hit them, when reality breaks in, when there's difficulty, pain, suffering, death, loss, all kinds of hardship comes their way, the people who have built their life on the foundation have a strong life if they built it on the right foundation. People who looked like they could do the same thing, but when those storms come, they don't have the same results.

So you can't look and see and tell how strong a person is or how weak they may be. What happens to them when the storms of life come? And they're coming to all of us. All kinds of difficulty, hardship and pain and loss and bereavement, it comes to all of us.

And the issue is how do we respond? So what I want to do in this message is simply this, describe a strong life. We know what a weak life is. What's a strong life about? And how does our life become strong?

There's not a question of whether you'll face trials and storms or not. They are coming and they will reveal who we are and what we're like and what our foundation is built on. So I want you to listen carefully. I want you to think when I mention each one of these, where does it fit in my life? So let's begin. The first one is simply this, and that is a strong life has placed our trust in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. That is a strong life begins with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of their life. That's first, that's foremost.

You can't put that any other place except on the bottom. That's the foundation. That you've trusted Jesus and that is you can look back in your life and know at a certain time you remember that you gave your life to Christ and that you know that you're saved. That's the foundation, evidence that you have a strong life. Secondly, and that's this, that you are guided by the Holy Spirit. A person who has a strong life is guided by the Holy Spirit. When Jesus saved you, He sent the Holy Spirit into your life to indwell you.

He sent Him for the simple reason that you and I, He knew, could not live adequately apart from Him. This is why He said to His disciples, before you launch out on fulfilling the Great Commission, you're not ready yet. You're not ready until the Holy Spirit fills you and enables you and empowers you to do what I called you to do. The truth is every strong life is a life that has the indwelling Holy Spirit and has Him there for God's purpose, that is to guide us and to lead us.

We can't look around and read the paper or watch the television and find out how to make decisions. We find out how to make decisions by coming to God, asking Him, and the Holy Spirit who lives within every single believer will guide you. He will enable you. He will show you the paths you should take and decisions you have to make in life.

He'll show you which ones are the wisest decisions. A wise person will listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit in your life. Thirdly, a strong life has this priority in their life, and that is spending time alone in prayer with God. Spending time alone with God in prayer is the, listen, this is the connecting point you have with God.

You look all around you. You can read and this, that, and the other, and so forth, but your connection point with Him is the time you spend with Him in prayer. And people say, well, you know what, I just found myself too busy to pray.

No, it's a misalignment of what's important in your life. The most important thing in your life is your relationship to Him, your connection to Almighty God. He's the one you talk to.

He's the one you bring your needs to. A strong person has a strong prayer life. There's not a single one of us who is too busy to pray. Now, if you tell God you're too busy to pray, here's what He may do. He may just lay you out with something that puts you in the hospital for about two weeks, flat on your back, and then all you've got to do is pray.

And for some time, we bring things on ourselves. Well, Lord, I just would if I had time. He will give you time. The truth is you have time. And the time you have is the time He's given you. It's a matter of your choosing how you spend your time. Listen, you can't invest your time in any way that's stronger, makes you stronger than praying and talking to Him as a daily, listen, it's not just a habit, it is a daily discipline in your life.

He is first above everything else. Very important for a strong life. Then of course, a strong life is built upon the teachings of the Word of God and listen, and the application of them. It's one thing to hear it, but applying it is something else. So when you come on Sunday morning, you take notes, for example, what do you do with them?

It's application. And I think about how many people go to church week after week and month after, years and years and years. They never carry a Bible, they never take a note. They couldn't tell you anything the pastor said. And years and years and years later, they can't tell you anything.

Why? Because they heard it, but they didn't apply it. We have to apply, think of all the sounds that you get in any given day, whether it's television, radio, traffic, people talking, whatever it might be. The sound of the Word of God and the sound of the voice of God is the most important sound. And you and I cannot do anything any more important than feeding upon the Word of God. That's, for example, you show me a strong life and I'll tell you somebody, if you keep talking to them in a little while, they'll bring up some Scripture that God's laid on their heart. And all of us who have been through difficulty and trial, we've got Scriptures, Scriptures that God placed upon our heart to take us through difficult times. And a strong life is a life that is built on obeying the truth of the Word of God. And so, it's very important that you and I have the Word of God in our life and have it there very, very consistently, bringing us to obedience. And of course, one of the areas of a strong life is that we see the Lord Jesus Christ as the strength of our life. Now think about this for a moment. Paul said, I can do all things through Christ who strengthen me. He's in jail, beaten, chained, locked up, you name it.

You know what? His foundation was so solid that no matter what they did, they never discouraged Him. They never made Him quit. They tried their best to stop Him from attempted assassinations to everything else. They didn't.

Why? Because He was strong. He was strong in the Word of God. He was strong in His relationship to God. He was strong in His obedience to God. And He knew in His heart that the strength of His life was not in His body, but was in His relationship to Jesus Christ. That's where our strength lies, in relationship.

And all these other things are part of that relationship. So ask yourself the question, how strong is your life? How much of your life? For example, you get up in the morning, you say, well, I'm going to do this, that, and the other. How often do you get up to say, Father, I want to thank You that You are my strength today. And if you have a job that's very difficult, do you ever say to Him, Lord, I need Your strength today to get this done.

I don't even know how I'm going to be able to do what I'm supposed to do. You're my strength. And what You've done is You have invited the Lord God into your life, so to speak, through His Holy Spirit to enable you and strengthen you, encourage you, and does not let you quit.

Because with Him, you can accomplish anything God has set before you to accomplish. And of course, quick to forgive. A strong person is quick to forgive.

You want to hinder yourself. You hold a grudge, you be unforgiving, and you say, well, what's that got to do with a strong life? I'll tell you what happens to you. A person who has an unforgiving spirit, it will affect you ultimately. It will affect your very physical body. If you have an unforgiving spirit, you hold grudges, you have a sense of hate. Those attitudes, attitudes that affect the person because you see, whatever affects your emotions affects your body because you can't separate spirit and emotions and physical body.

It all goes together. I can remember the time when in my life I dealt with that once and for all and knew how to deal with it. Something had happened to me that hurt me and so I was just sort of saying, well, Lord, you know, you know all that stuff you tell Him, He doesn't listen to you. And so, it's like the Lord said to me, remember the cross? I thought, yes. How many times have I forgiven you? Yes. Have I held anything against you?

No. What right do you have to hold anything against anyone when I have forgiven you of everything you have ever done and I have even beforehand forgiven you of all you'll ever do? That cured me.

That should cure everybody. If you have those kind of feelings towards somebody else, just look at the cross. His outstretched arms and His shed blood took care of all of our sin, all of our mistakes, all of our heartaches and all of our burdens. Strong life is very, very forgiving, quick to forgive. And then of course there's inner peace. Person who has a strong life is going to have inner peace.

Why? Your relationship with God is right, relationship with others is right, difficulties, hardship, pain comes through into your life, what happens? In spite of all that, there's a peace. And I can remember this, you know, some things you can remember you'll never forget. I can remember when I heard the worst news I could ever hear as a pastor, worst. And I got the phone call and when I finished, I put the phone down, I had this overwhelming sense of awesome peace. And I remember saying, God, You've carried me through all these other storms, You'll take me through this one.

Because God is faithful, He will keep His Word no matter what we do. And it's all of these things that build strength into our life. That so when the torrential storms come, we don't waver, we don't give up, we don't quit. And then of course, listen to this, belonging to a Bible teaching church. If you're going to live a Christian life, you need to know what a Christian life's all about. If you're going to live a godly life and follow the Lord Jesus Christ, you need to be taught. We, listen, God's continually teaching me, I study all week long.

I'm not looking for sermons, I'm looking and asking God to speak to my heart, teach me something new, work in my life. So I go spend an hour in a church and the Word of God is ignored. That's what church is all about. Church is about worshiping Him. How do I know who I'm worshiping with from the Word of God? Very important that you belong to a church where they teach the Word of God so that you can grow in your life and you can be strong and you can be fruitful for the kingdom of God.

This is our time to worship Him. What helps me worship Him is knowing the truth about Him. Why do I learn that? I learn it from reading myself and I also learn it from those who've gone before me, who also teach me the truths that they've learned. Very important if you're going to be a strong person that you have a source from which you're strengthened continuously. And then, to be goal-oriented. That is, you have goals in life. Somebody said to me one time, how can you trust God and still have goals? Jesus had goals, He says, I must need to go through Samaria. And He knew that His ultimate goal was the cross. And so, God has goals for all of us. In other words, if there's a purpose for your living, there are goals in that purpose, things that He wants you to accomplish. And oftentimes a person won't, they won't set a goal in their life because they think, well, that's too high, God would never do that to me.

So they get down here. No. Listen, is God weak?

No. God's great. He's our mission. We should set godly goals, godly goals for our life that look like it's something we can't do. But God will help you reach it if you're willing to walk the pathway of obedience and faith and an optimistic spirit, trusting Him in everything you do. Then, of course, to be confident. To be confident doesn't mean to be cocky, doesn't mean to be proud and egotistical. It means, listen, that you have a self-assurance that is based on your relationship to God. That whatever He calls you to do, you can do it. Wherever He calls you to go, you can go. Well, I think about how many missionaries have gone to many, many countries in the world, laid down their lives preaching and teaching the gospel, confident that God had sent them.

And therefore, they could weather the storms, whatever it might be. Why wouldn't you be a confident person? Why wouldn't you be assured? God is your heavenly Father. Jesus is your Savior. The Holy Spirit is your motivator and He's your energizer.

In other words, why shouldn't we be confident? A strong person is. And then I would mention two last things. One of them is to be fruitful. If you're a strong person, you're going to be fruitful. Your life's going to be fruitful. It isn't going to be just love, joy, peace, goodness, and self-control. It's going to be your life, you're going to multiply your life. Somebody's going to see you and think, you know what, that's the kind of person I want to be.

That's what I want in my life. And all of us have met people like that. And I can remember the two pastors, the first one I ever met, that I'd never heard him preaching like he preached. And I was in Texas when I heard him. And I remember sitting there thinking, God, I knew somebody could preach like that and tonight I'm hearing Him. It absolutely transformed me. Gave me all sorts of confidence and assurance and wanting to be fruitful in my life. The other man, this is the first time I ever heard him, I thought, here's the second man who's really stirred me. I've watched the Spirit of God work in him.

I thought, Lord, thank You, thank You, thank You. I've heard the second man that motivated me to want to give my best no matter what. Study the Word of God and be true to the Word of God. So if you think about it, you're either going to bear good fruit or bad fruit. And you know what? If somebody says, well, who determines that?

Nobody but us. We're the ones who determined that. And so a strong life is fruit bearing in character, conduct, and conversation.

They've got to be strong. The last thing I would say is simply this, and that is, this kind of life we're talking about will impact the lives of others. We're going to have an influence on other people, a strong life always impacts other people. So I would encourage you to take this list and you'll say, well, does all this apply to me? Well, I figured that certainly every one of them applied to me.

I want every single one of those things in my life. When I, for example, want to remember something, or when I want to accomplish certain things, I write them down, I put them beside my bed, I put them on my study. In other words, I go over them and over them and over them because I don't want to lose them. If you just put this, you put this in your Bible and say, oh, I'm going to keep this really close in my Bible.

No, no, no, no. That I just get it off the paper and get it in your heart and in your life. If you mean business, if you'll keep it somewhere close, that you can keep reading them and reading them and you'll think, God, what's missing in my life? And the Lord shows you, well, first of all, you're not being obedient to me. First of all, you're not spending time in prayer. In other words, if you want a strong life, and if I should ask you, how many of you want a weak life? Nobody is going to want a weak life. And I've just shared with you the things that make for a strong life. And I pray God will entrench them into your heart and into your daily activities of your life.

Amen? Thank you for listening to A Strong Life. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.