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FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH (Psalm 84)

Do you need strength for today?

I can answer that question for you. Yes! We all need strength, and not just from our resources or what someone else can muster. We need the strength that comes only from almighty God.

Psalm 84 is all about that strength. In fact, in the middle of the psalm, verse 7 says, “They go from strength to strength.”

I don’t know about you, but I see so many people who look like they are living from failure to failure, weakness to weakness, and disappointment to disappointment. But God says His children are to be living “from strength to strength.” That theme is found throughout the Word of God.

“For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:17)

In other words, the Christian moves from one moment of faith in God to another moment of faith. We are to be moving constantly between segments of trust and obedience. In so doing, we move from strength to strength.

That is what George Duffield meant when he wrote this powerful hymn:

Stand up, stand up for Jesus,

Ye soldiers of the cross;

Lift high his royal banner,

It must not suffer loss.

From victory unto victory

His army shall he lead,

Till every foe is vanquished,

And Christ is Lord indeed.

From victory to victory, from faith to faith, from strength to strength. How do you have that kind of strength?

Verse 1: “How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!” This is a picture of the temple, going up to the place of worship.

Verse 2: “My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.”

1. Strength grows out of worship.

Worship comes from being in the presence of God. It is not something we can work up ourselves. It is something God puts in us. There is a divine enabling that grows out of being in the Lord’s presence.

We are reminded how, in the New Testament, those apostles who had been weak and cowardly were suddenly so bold. According to Acts 4:13, the people “took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.”

When you have been alone with God, He puts some fortitude and fresh courage in you. The word “encourage” means “new courage.” God has a way of doing that. The joy of the Lord becomes your strength. There is a beautiful word picture in Psalm 84 of how that happens.

Verses 3-4: “Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah.”

The little bird, seemingly so small and insignificant, is no longer atop the house but has moved inside it, having found a place to make a quiet, safe nest. Imagine the holy hush of the temple that was in the writer’s mind at this moment.

Too many of us are living on the housetop, looking at everything going on around us, when God wants us to get in the house. Find that quiet and safe place where you can be alone with God. The sparrow found its home in His presence, and so can you. When you get there, you will find strength.

Verse 5: “Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them.” It could not be more plain. This is not about you psyching yourself up and determining to pull yourself up by your bootstraps to get it done. Your strength is found in God alone.

Verse 6-8: “Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools. They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God. O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.”

2. Strength carries you through moments of weeping.

That is what Baca literally means: “weeping.” It is when you are so weak and broken that all you can do is cry that God is putting you in the place where He wants you and giving your the strength He wants you to have.

Notice in verse 6 the reference to “passing through” this valley. How wonderful to know that you will not be going in there to live; you will be coming out the other side. Tears will not last forever. As Ps. 30:5 tells us, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”

Another key phrase in verse 6 is “make it a well.” You may feel as though you have cried a pool of tears, but those tears become a well from which you can draw for the rest of your life, to look back and say, “God helped me there.” Aren’t you glad that He meets you in the valley as well as on the mountain?

This leads us directly to verse 7: “They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.” The tears lead not to weakness, but to a greater strength.

3. Strength must continue in your daily walk.

Verses 9-10: “Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed. For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.”

Do you see how it always comes back to the presence of God? Notice also the tents vs. the house. Tents are temporary; you set them up, tear them down, and take them away. A house, on the other hand, is permanent. It is up to you whether you want to live in the tents of wickedness and enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season or dwell in the house of God permanently.

Verse 11: “For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” This is another reference to our walk. As a sun and a shield, God gives brightness and warmth while also protecting and providing for us. He gives grace to bring you through and glory coming out of it.

Verse 12: “O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.”

Do you want to go from strength to strength? Then you must go from faith to faith. Live every day depending upon the almighty God and living in the place of worship. If you do that, even when you are going through the valley and a place of weeping, you can walk on. You can come out the other side with strength.

The strength we need today is not found in financial resources or our abilities or ideas; it is the strength of the Lord. If you abide in Him today, you will be able to go from strength to strength.