God's strength not our own?

I was strengthening my muscles at the gym today when I realised that I haven't written on those verses in Joshua 1 that I said in January I would ponder this year. In fact I haven't pondered them much at all recently. 

My recent thoughts have been more about what do Christians really mean when they say things like, "I was doing it in my own strength, not God's." It can tend to be a throw-away cliche, but what does it really mean?

It's very common in Japan to see old trees with their branches
propped up with bamboo sticks.

At conference last week we had an unexpected 30 minutes after the final Bible talk to do individual reflection. The passage we'd heard about was in Colossians 1, but I went searching further into the book for answers about the above question.

I pondered if, when we do things in God's strength we are dwelling in God's word (4:16) and working as if for the Lord, not for human masters (3:23). I wonder if we're working in God's strength if we're doing it all in the name of the Lord Jesus and always giving thanks to God. (3:17). Whether, when we're using the gifts God gives us (1 Tim. 4:10-11), we're serving in God's strength, not our own.


I also wondered if we're doing things in God's strength, our actions will look more like those in Colossians 3:12-15: compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, patient, forgiving, and loving.

I did a lot of pondering in that half an hour.

I looked briefly at Paul's prayer for the Ephesians (3:14-21), where he talks about strength quite a lot: asking that God would strengthen the Christians through his Holy Spirit. That they would have the strength to comprehend the entirety of Christ's love for them. He mentions the "power at work within us". I wonder if we're keeping our eyes on Jesus, whether we'll be more aware of the power at work in us, God's power?

Now back to those verses in Joshua, Here's what God said to Joshua after Moses died and Joshua was about to take the whole of Israel across a raging Jordan River (it was in flood) and into the promised land:

"No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.

“Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:5-9 NIV)

In one way it looks like God's telling him to be strong in his own strength, but read in context I think it says, "Be strong because you know who's backing you. I'm there with you and if you do it my way, then you will be successful." "Successful" of course being God's definition of it, not ours!

And I think that's where we often get caught, we think up a definition of success and aim at that: like number of baptisms in a church or number of people attending the church on a Sunday. We count the number of missionaries who are on the field or how much money's been given towards their needs. We even look at how many people "like" our social media pages and how many posts get shared. All these are good things, but I wonder how God measures success, because sometimes I think we're doing the best we can to judge if we're "on target" but in actual fact we don't know quite what God deems "success".

But, there it is, I've gone off topic. 

When you hear "I was doing it in my strength, not God's", what do you think of? How do you know when that is true of you?