Hi, and welcome to the Five Word Prayers Daily, a five-day-a-week daily devotional where we share the

word, prayers, and our heart. I'm Lisa Whittle, and I welcome you to just five minutes with me,

which I trust and pray will be five minutes well spent. We're continuing our series of Put Your

Warrior Boots on, and today is all about getting strong. But there's a myth surrounding strength

I really want to address today,

and I hope if you're listening and you don't feel very strong, you especially listen close

because this show is for you.

I remember reading the song of Deborah in Judges Five. Deborah remember the only female judge

mentioned in the

Bible who says this, March on with courage, my soul. And in some verses later in that same chapter,

may those who love you rise like the sun in all its power. What a beautiful picture of strength

and rising. If we've ever been in the sun when it's at full strength, we know that it can be

quite overwhelming and powerful, that we as believers in Jesus Christ are to be like the sun and rise

up for God like that in our witness and testimony for him is such a motivating and also

convicting thought. So many of us are much more laid back about Jesus, I think,

and yet he's given up his life for us. Our passion for him doesn't even come close to matching

his passion for us, and really never will. So there's a myth about strength that I know is

what's going around, because I've been told it over and over again by multiple people

that in order to be strong, we must be born strong people, right? We must have the strong

gene, whatever that is. I read a portion of the book some weeks back about the martyrs, the

Christian martyrs, remember, and how they weren't just born martyrs. They weren't just,

they weren't born special with the capacity to give up their life. They were human just like us,

...