Mar 21
15
Your Almighty Friend!
(Octavius Winslow, “Christ, the Mighty God”)
“He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace!” Isaiah 9:6
Because Jesus is the almighty God, His people have an almighty burden-bearer.
We are a burdened people. Every believer carries a burden peculiar to himself.
What is your burden, O believer?
Is it indwelling sin?
Is it some natural infirmity of the body?
Is it a constitutional weakness?
Is it some domestic trial?
Is it a personal or relative trial?
Is it a state of poverty?
Is it the decay of health?
Is it soul anxiety?
Is it mental despondency?
It is well that you are sensible of the pressure, that you feel your weakness and insufficiency, and that you are brought to the end of all your own power. Now turn to your Almighty Friend, who is the Creator of the ends of the earth, even the everlasting God, who does not faint, neither is weary. Come, oppressed and burdened believer, ready to give up all and sink—behold Jesus, the Almighty God, omnipotent to transfer your burden to Himself, and give you rest!
How precious is the promise addressed to you! “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint!” Isaiah 40:29-31
Oh, what strength there is in Jesus for the weak, and faint and drooping of His flock!
You are ready to succumb to your foes, and you think that the battle of faith is lost. Cheer up! Jesus, your Savior, friend, and brother, is “the Almighty God,” and will perfect His strength in your weakness. He . . .
sustains our infirmities,
bears our burdens,
supplies our needs, and
encircles us with the shield of His Almightiness!
What a Divine spring of consolation and strength to the tired and afflicted saint, is the Almightiness of Jesus. Your sorrow is too deep, your affliction is too heavy, your difficulty is too great for any human to resolve. It distances in its intensity and magnitude, the sympathy and the power of man.
Come, you . . .
who are tempest-tossed and not comforted;
whose spirit is wounded,
whose heart is broken,
whose mind is bowed down to the dust—
and hide within Christ’s sheltering Almightiness!
Jesus is equal to your condition.
His strength is almighty!
His love is almighty!
His grace is almighty!
His sympathy is almighty!
His arm is almighty!
His resources are infinite, fathomless, measureless!
Almighty to rescue, He is also your Brother and Friend to sympathize. And while His Divine arm encircles, upholds, and keeps you—His human soul, touched with the feeling of your infirmities, yearns over you with all the deep intensity of its compassionate tenderness.