STRONG | If I die, I die

Daniel‬ ‭11‬:‭32‬b But the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.

The Bible says that those who KNOW their God (not generically, but personally) shall firstly be STRONG. Being strong involves being bold or courageous. We see the likes of Daniel not moved when threats of death came their way.

He told the king to give him a night to pray, to find the solution to which if had not been provided, the penalty would be death.

In chapter six, when a law was passed to worship an idol, Daniel did not alter his custom of praying thrice to His God. He was thrown in a den of lions, and even when he knew that would be the penalty for not worshipping the idol, He still told the law passers that they were dreaming if they thought they’d see him kiss its feet!

It takes courage to stand up to such threats. Very special courage. The courage required to face a fierce animal or an intruding thief, is way lower than that when death is coming right at you! It requires an extraordinary strength added to it.

In our era, christians cower or hide from less menacing threats. Their lives may not be as publicized or documented world wide like Daniel’s, but, many others don’t even stand against wicked laws. They comply easily; to laws that support abortion for example, or same sex marriage. It is even worse for those who keep quiet altogether.

Some clergy allow to even marry these, just to be accepted by society. Just to be accepted by men who can only destroy flesh, choosing to rather be against He that can destroy both flesh and spirit. This ought not to be so.

Another example the Bible gives us is Esther. In chapter four, she was preparing to go see the king, concerning the plot against her people. It was punishable approaching the king without his invitation.

She said, “… I will go in to see the king without being summoned which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” Esther‬ ‭4‬:‭16‬ ‭AMP‬‬

The New Century Version says ‘If I die, I die.’

It takes a whole level of courage to be that selfless; to look at the possible danger and still choose not to steer away, but go ram into it! If it be your end, you embrace it, knowing it is game over.

Through God’s mercy, many did not necessarily end up the way their enemies wished, as we saw in Daniel and Esther. But this same courage is what many apostles bore when they faced stakes and flames and boiling oil when they were asked to renounce their faith.

All the martyrs we read about, the seed of sacrifice each became could not have happened if not for strength! Strength of courage. Here in Uganda, we have a public holiday every June, commemorating a group of teenagers & youth who were burnt for refusing to renounce their faith.

God looks at that seed. What they sowed is what they reaped. They sowed souls, and today, close to 150 years later, many souls identify as christian. 82% of the total population says so, according to the 2024 population census report.

Being strong is a virtue and one of the identities of God. He has been described as a mighty one! 1 John 4:17 states, that as He is, so are we in this world. If He is strong, then should we be too. Revelation 5:12 says King Jesus received strength. And if He is in us, that virtue must portray. Hence, we shall land in situations that press it out of us, or reveal it in us.

David faced Goliath basing on strength drawn from His covenant and secret place. He KNEW His God, and so He was strong, and eventually did many great exploits, starting with beheading Goliath of Gath. Notice two things; David received strength first and then the exploits followed. Strength precedes mighty exploits as well. Secondly, David, not for a moment, did He meditate on losing or dying, despite the fear that filled the atmosphere.

There comes a level of strength, where one can no longer say ‘If I die, I die.’ There comes a level where you either win or win! Either you make it through, emerging victorious or the enemy loses … and in all this, you come out unscathed: with no scratch whatsoever!

He is mighty to deliver. Unlike some of our fore fathers, they had no evidences of victories of God bound in a book. But we have no excuse. We should expect Him to conquer and conquer alone. We should expect Him to do exceedingly, abundantly above all which we can ask or think.

Most importantly, this strength if found in us, isn’t for our sake, but the Father’s. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to bow to the golden image. When they were thrown in the fire, and came out with no hair singed, no scorch mark on their clothes, not even the smell of fire on them … the king firstly defended the Almighty, and a chapter later, believed this same God. If the Hebrew boys were not ‘strong’, or bold, other gods would have prevailed.

When a million of us take such stands, that is how the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our God. But then again, to the degree with which you know God, will be the degree with which you sprout in strength. This knowing must be burgeoning because the word says in Psalm 84:7 that ‘they go from strength to strength…’

The Hebrew word for strength there was Me’Od, and it also means ‘muchness.’ So that verse could also be read as ‘from one muchness of strength to another muchness…’ Meaning you’d be undertaking something that is mind blowing now, only to do something that supersedes that tomorrow. David had just beheaded one giant the other day, and then brought 200 Philistine foreskins as bride price for his father-in-law. The latter provoked more reverence than the former.

The more you KNOW God (intimately) the more heights of strength you scale! Like I mentioned earlier, the strength needed to face a thief, is different from when you have promised a night in a den of lions. One has a promise of survival. The other … none!

I’ll replicate the point of knowledge in another ensample; the courage needed by a child to stop fearing a shadow that is following them everywhere comes when they KNOW that a shadow is not evil but a part of them and is cast by the opaqueness they are by a greater light.

In conclusion, if you only experience or encounter God less, you will always have plan Bs and Cs and Ds incase ‘He doesn’t come through.’ O but if you’d see His face, and recall more and more of what He did for your ancestors of faith, and what He has brought you through … your strength will fatten in strength and along with it — the great exploits.

And note that what could be your hindrance or your end today could be the very thing (firstly) that everyone else fears, (for example execution for not bowing to an idol) but it could be the very circumstance that God uses as the great exploit to the entire world!

The Hebrew boys became the ‘fire walkers’: the ones that walked in fire and never burnt. Daniel became the Den survivor: the only one who ever went in and came out alive! Why wouldn’t men talk about them forever!

Why wouldn’t men ask why they didn’t die!

Their intimacy & knowing, availed strength and turned all that was meant to be their end into a spectacular testimony, and conversation starter about El Shaddai!

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Proverbs‬ ‭28‬:‭1b But the righteous are bold as a lion.