Revelation 3:8 “I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.”

“Little strength” doesn’t sound positive. Was Jesus commenting on the numbers of people who belonged to this congregation? I know something about churches without very many people. I pastor a little mission church of about 50 people. Another pastor described how hard it can be for a start-up church to get past the “kook” stage. Until you have more than thirty people in worship, the whole thing feels a little “kooky” to the visitors. When you’re so small, they might not be inclined to come back.

Is Jesus talking about the congregation’s finances? Were they poor? I know something about churches that can’t support themselves. When my congregation began, it received over half of its operating funds from our denomination’s mission board. We were living on a kind of church welfare.

Ten years ago my wife and I visited Rome, Italy. We walked into churches that looked rather humble on the outside. But once through the door there was gold mosaic, marble statuary, and paintings by great artists that must have been worth millions of dollars. It seemed that every street corner had a church like this on it. Compared to that, we may think we have “little strength.”

Was Jesus referring to the condition of the people in the congregation? If we are honest, we must admit that we are spiritually broken. We have made messes of our lives. They must be grave disappointments to God in many ways. We are sin-sick. We are weak. We have little strength.

But as believers, we aren’t dead. There is a little life, a little strength in us. In the letter immediately preceding this one, the letter to the church in Sardis, Jesus had John write, “I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.” “A little strength” is better than being dead. Where there is life, there is hope.

It is a matter of our Savior’s grace that he has preserved our faith and maintained a little strength among us. As long as we remember that this is our condition, it can even be a great blessing. We in our little churches aren’t the most impressive people in the world. We have nothing to boast about.

But do you remember what the Apostle Paul once said about the weakness he described as his “thorn in the flesh”? “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me…for when I am weak, then I am strong.” If we will remember our weak position and continue to rely on our Savior for strength, there is no limit to the good things he can do for us. Isn’t that why Jesus told us, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you”?  

Our faith may be so small, but the Savior we trust is so big, that even a little strength is reason for optimism in the churches we call home today.