“Blessed [happy] is the man whose strength is in You . . . .” Ps. 84:5. Indeed, the person who is strong in God is truly strong—not to do evil but to do good! “I can’t manage to do that” is a common, human, and sinful concept. Alas, how pitifully little most people manage to do or bear! It is a shame and a scandal seeing that we live in the dispensation of the new covenant, which we could just as well call the dispensation of power! All of us have abundant opportunity to be filled with God’s love, the love that bears all things! The question is how is this tremendous power of God transmitted to us weak, even pathetically weak, people? This question was already superbly answered in the writings of the old covenant: “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord.” Jer. 17:7. This is in perfect harmony with Psalm 84:5. We are used to hearing that we receive everything by faith. We constantly preach and hear the word of faith and of the good doctrine. Trusting in God and having confidence in God is believing God. These expressions for faith are not often used despite the fact that they are just as powerful. “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever.” Ps. 125:1. Neither adversity nor prosperity can move them. All the temptations of the world and of the flesh and of Satan cannot move them to sin, because they are joyful, happy, and blessed! They have followed the exhortation in Ephesians 6:10: “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.” Their strength is in God! They are repeatedly supplied with tremendous power because they trust fully and completely in Him—continuously and wholeheartedly. This is really something to learn, better late than never, but preferably at the beginning of one’s Christian life!Elias Aslaksen