Nothing Can Stand Against
Let’s finish this week looking at Phil Wickham’s song Battle Belongs with the words of the bridge:
Almighty Fortress, You go before us
Nothing can stand against the power of our God
You shine in the shadow, You win every battle
Nothing can stand against the power of our God
Wickham declares that God is an almighty fortress. This is a great picture of God that we often see in the Psalms – a fortress is a safe place in which you can hide and attack your enemies with little danger of them getting to you. God is like that. A strong tower, elevating us above the enemy, so that we can be victorious.
God's Power: Triumph Amid Hardships
And then he says “nothing can stand against the power of our God”. Some of you might be wondering about this. Perhaps you faced some sort of tragedy and thought “where was God’s power then?” When a loved one dies tragically, or health issues happen, or business fails and jobs are taken away, we can often think that the world is more powerful than our God.
But declaring that God is powerful does not mean that we believe He will take away all difficulty. It’s important for us to remember this, as we sing songs of faith like this – faith does not mean God will prevent all hardships coming our way. But it means He will prevent them from conquering us if our faith is in Him.
Paul wrote these stirring words in Romans: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35–39 NIV11)
Endure with Faith: God's Power
Paul never said we won’t face difficulties. In fact he said that in all these difficulties we are conquerors! And so when we sing nothing can stand against the power of our God, we are saying “let these things come. We can handle them through the power of our God.”
Are you facing some such difficulties today? It’s ok, I think, to pray for God to take them away. But I think it’s an even better prayer to ask Him to help you endure them with grace and joy and strength. What a witness to the world you and I could be, if we declare that the power of our God helped us through difficult times. That nothing could defeat us because of our faith!!
That’s the type of Christian I want to be. And I pray that this is the type of Christian you will be – enduring life’s trials with faith and joy, because you are so convinced that no hardship can stand against the power of God that fills your heart.
