Here to Pump You Up

Isn’t it something how our wishes and priorities change as we walk down the road of life? Consider the following two human values. At what stage are we wishing for strength? At what stage are we wishing for holiness. From childhood into maturity, I am sure we are perpetually seeking strength of all kinds. The wish for holiness, to be sure, comes in stages of spiritual maturity when our close union with God becomes a priority.

As a teenager, the strength I sought was physical strength. I remember spending many afternoons at the home of a high school chum, Gary Crawford. His was an athletic family so they had a set of weights for strength training. His big brother, Jim, was a relief pitcher for the Astros in the 1970s. I needed the workouts in the off-season for prep football in the fall and wrestling in the winter. I wanted strength and big muscles. O, the adolescent ego is a determined thing.

There are other kinds of strength we seek in life: emotional, moral self-control and spiritual strength are valuable. These values flow naturally into a desire for holiness. Such a desire is part of our own need for connection to the One who is Holiness. We seek to be holy for our relationship with the Holy God. We learn that God has made us in the divine image. We are created for Godself. God is holiness itself, and by the work of the Holy Spirit, we are being brought step by step into holiness. The more we cooperate with this sanctifying work, the better we get through this earthly life of space and time, and the hungrier we become for things eternal. Notice how these concepts fit into the Collect of the Day for next Sunday:

O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

There is a strong statement here that without God, nothing is strong, and nothing is holy. God who is absolutely holy and mighty is the source of any genuine holiness and strength we might realize in our lives. That is why we ask that God’s mercy be increased and multiplied upon us. The merciful Savior will work within us to bring us, come what may, through the temporal life to eternal life. Holiness and strength are available to us and the source of both is, of course, our loving God.

I know I cannot bench press now what I could as a seventeen-year-old athlete, but like you, I seek to be stronger and to deepen my holiness of life week by week. We need it. Lord have mercy; the temporal things we face are tricky!