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GAINING IN GOD
April 25, 2025Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary. Isaiah 40:31
In Isaiah 40:27, God asks Israel why they think He has forsaken them. “Why do you say, ‘My way is hidden from the Lord, and the justice due me escapes the notice of my God’?” In this question, He confronts our human condition where we feel like God isn’t present to help us or we feel like there’s no hope. Then in verse 31, He counters that fear by emphasizing His desire to help and lift us. He wants us to gain in life – where we trade our weakness for His strength.
1. WE GAIN ETERNAL LIFE. When we repent and surrender our lives to God, we are placed at a great advantage. Sin is worse than any catastrophe. Worse than drought, worse than the Ice Age, worse than famine. It is humanity’s deepest crisis. “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19) and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). The remedy to sin is beyond description. Jesus – the Redeemer – is the only one in all of existence who was capable and willing to meet the need. He provided the ultimate gift: Eternal life.
2. WE GAIN A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD. God doesn’t just save us; He makes us completely new. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We gain access to God, which is the pinnacle, the highest privilege in all of life. Material things stay in the physical realm. Intellectual pursuits can only go so far. But eternal treasure, the kind that doesn’t fade, is found in knowing Him (Matthew 6:19-21). We are invited to set our affections on things above, not only on what’s temporary (Colossians 3:2).
3. WE GAIN HELP FOR THIS LIFE. God invades every part of our lives. He comes out of the ethereal and into the tangible and practical areas of our lives. When you wait on the Lord, you gain new strength in THIS life. He wants to equip you in the now, not just for eternity. “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength” (Isaiah 40:29 KJV). Jesus told a parable that men ought always to pray and not lose heart or faint (Luke 18:1). Or Philippians 4:6 says “Don’t worry about anything. Instead pray about everything” (NLT). As we wait on the Lord – He works it all out!
DEFINITION
Gain, verb
Hebrew: châlaph
Alter, change, cut off, go on forward, grow up, pass (away, on through), renew, sprout.
PRAY THIS OUT LOUD:
Father, help me to be excellent at waiting on You and desiring Your presence. You said, if we draw near to You, You will draw near to us. You said if we resist the devil, he will flee. God, I pray that You will come in and cause tremendous breakthrough, tremendous change, tremendous help, and impact my heart in Jesus’ Name, amen.
Copyright © 2025 St. Louis Family Church, All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reprinted or distributed in any form without prior written permission of St. Louis Family Church. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked “KJV” are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version, Cambridge, 1769. “Gain, châlaph, 2498.” Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. James Strong, 1890, p. 40.
