“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” Ephesians 6:10 (KJV)

As Paul begins to close the letter to the Ephesians, he addresses the spiritual warfare we face as members of “the Body of Christ.”  Paul’s instruction is for us to “be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.”  In this spiritual conflict, we need spiritual strength of ‘faith.’  As we are on the Lord’s side, Paul points us to the Lord Almighty, from Whom we are to get our strength.  In this epistle, Paul has been showing believers that we are forever “sealed with the Spirit” (Eph. 1:13-14) … “in Christ,” in perfect, eternal union with Him.  Being “in Christ,” we find that His life is our life and His power is our power.  We, as members of His the Body, draw on the faith, strength and power for living the Christian life from our living “Head of the body,” which is Christ (Colossians 1:18).

“What is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead…” (Eph. 1:19-20).

“Being strong in the Lord and in the power of His might” has to do with living by faith in the resurrection life and power which resides in every believer by… Christ’s life.  We trust in the same power that raised Christ from the dead in order to use to stand in this spiritual conflict in he face of Satan’s lies and deception.  The strength of the Christian life is dependence on God.  So, Paul points the Church to be “strong in the Lord,” to depend upon Him and His words to us.

Before salvation, Paul says we are “without strength” (Rom. 5:6).  We were weak and absolutely unable to resist Satan’s devices, to please God, or save ourselves.  Salvation is only through trusting Christ, and by Him alone we have victory over sin’s power, penalty and punishment.  After trusting Christ as our Savior, we remain weak in ourselves, and in the Christian life our sufficiency must be of God (2 Cor. 3:5).  Victory over sin’s power in our lives occurs the same way we are saved from sin’s penalty, by wholly trusting Christ and Him alone.  His strength is more than sufficient for the battle, and we are guaranteed victory over any lying deception that Satan throws at us when we turn our hearts to our Lord (Phil. 4:13).

The question was asked in a Sunday School class: “How can we defeat Satan?”  One little girl answered, “Let Jesus answer the door when Satan starts knocking.”  To be instructed to be “strong in the Lord and in the power of His might” tells us that our might is not strong enough for us to be able to stand in this spiritual battle, and it tells us that we face an enemy much stronger than we are apart from Christ.  Therefore we need the infinite power of our Lord in this spiritual battle, and we appropriate that strength by yielding to the indwelling Spirit, through prayer and dependence on God, and by knowledge of, faith in His Words to us, rightly divided (cf. Eph. 6:17-18).

This paper was adapted from Sadler Kevin, by Arthur J Licursi