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I. MORAL ENERGY A DIVINE GIFT. This verse deals with the great motive power of the Christian religion, what imparts inward strength to frail humanity. Much besides is, so to speak, machinery, and this — the grace of Christ, is the steam, the driving force, without which the most perfect machinery is useless. Paul enjoins Timothy to obtain this force, this inward energy of the soul; and by calling it "grace" the apostle teaches that it is not like the unconscious forces of nature — the power of wind, or water, or fire, or gravity-which human skill can have at command and direct; but a power of a different, a spiritual order, and bestowed on other conditions. For it flows from the grace or kindness of God, and it is, therefore, called "grace," just as an act prompted by kindness is called a kindness, and the same with a favour.

II. CHRIST THE SOURCE OF MORAL ENERGY. The Christian faith is that the Lord Jesus Christ is the fountain of all power, and the tire of all love, dwelling in the heart, as well as in heaven: "Who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." That is the faith of Christ; and it cannot be said of it that it is a weak, unsubstantial, and merely sentimental religion. It is based on the most sublime facts, for which it offers appropriate evidence; and the power of those facts to arrest, attract, rivet, and renew the hearts of weak and sinful men, and awaken in them an enthusiasm of trust, and gratitude, and devotion — the history of our religion for eighteen hundred years must declare, for no mere language can.

III. THE COMMAND TO BE STRONG IN CHRIST. It is very characteristic of Scripture, and of its close conformity to human nature, even in its problems, that this great central thought, of the Divine source of moral energy, should be put into the form of a command to be obeyed — an injunction, for the observance of which man is responsible. It is not said to us, "Lie helpless till the Divine energy of Christ flows into your soul"; but, "Be inwardly strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." "I charge you to become empowered with that energy." Such is our strange life, our mysterious nature. Dependent on God yet responsible to Him! "It is God that worketh in you." "Work out your own salvation." "I, yet not I," says Paul. "By grace ye are saved" and healed; and this grace has its centre and fount in Christ. But it is your duty to have much of it.

(T. M. Herbert, M. A.)

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KJV: Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

WEB: You therefore, my child, be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.