35 Bible Verses about Striving With God
Most Relevant Verses
And [when] we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Aramaic language, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? [It is] hard for you to kick against the goads!'
And look, God [is] with us at the head, and his priests [have] the trumpets for sounding blasts against you, O sons of Israel. Do not fight against Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, for you will not succeed."
{Make a plan}, but it will be frustrated! Speak a word, but it will not stand, for God is with us!
Therefore if God gave them the same gift as also to us [when we] believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I [to be] able to hinder God?"
[The] kings of [the] earth establish themselves, and the rulers conspire together against Yahweh and his anointed: "Let us tear off their bonds, and cast their cords from us!" [He who] sits [enthroned] in the heavens laughs. The Lord derides them.read more.
Then he speaks to them in his wrath, and in his fury he terrifies them:
"All of the wicked [one's] days he is writhing, even [through] the number of years that are laid up for the tyrant. Sounds of terror [are] in his ears; in prosperity [the] destroyer will come [against] him. {He cannot trust that he will return} from darkness, and he himself is destined for [the] sword.read more.
"He is wandering for bread, [saying], 'Where [is it]?' He knows that a day of darkness [is] ready {at hand}. Anguish and distress terrify him; they overpower him like a king ready for the battle. Because he stretched out his hand against God, and he was arrogant to Shaddai; he {stubbornly} runs against him {with his thick-bossed shield}.
"[You] stiff-necked [people] and uncircumcised in hearts and in [your] ears! You constantly resist the Holy Spirit! As your fathers [did], [so] also [do] you!
On the contrary, O man, who are you who answers back to God? Will what is molded say to the one who molded [it], "Why did you make me like this"?
"Shall a faultfinder contend with Shaddai? Anyone who argues with God must answer it."
Woe [to the] one who strives with his {maker}, a potsherd among potsherds of earth! Does [the] clay say to the one who fashions it, 'What are you making?' and 'Your work has no hands'? Woe [to the] one who says to a father, 'What you are begetting?' or to a woman, '[With] what are you in labor?'" Thus says Yahweh, the holy one of Israel, and its {maker}: "Ask me of the things to come {about} my children, and you command me about the work of my hands.
Then all the community {lifted up their voices}, and the people wept during that night. And all the {Israelites} grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and all the community said to them, "If only we had died in the land of Egypt or in this desert! Why did Yahweh bring us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little children will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return [to] Egypt?"read more.
{They said to each other}, "Let us appoint a leader, and we will return [to] Egypt."
Those [were] the waters of Meribah, where the {Israelites} quarreled with Yahweh, and he showed himself holy among them.
"Do not harden your heart as [at] Meribah, as [in] the day of Massah in the wilderness, when your ancestors tried me. They put me to the test, [even] though they had seen my work.
But if it is from God, you will not be able to overthrow them, lest you even be found fighting against God." So they were persuaded by him.
Then David said to the Philistine, "You [are] coming to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I am coming to you in the name of Yahweh of hosts, the God of the battle lines of Israel, whom you have defied!
this [is] the word that Yahweh has spoken concerning him: She shows contempt for you; she derides you, virgin daughter of Zion; she shakes [her] head behind you, daughter of Jerusalem. Whom have you taunted and blasphemed, and against whom have you raised up [your] voice and lifted your eyes upward? To the holy one of Israel! By the hand of your servants you have taunted the Lord, and you have said, "With my many chariots, I myself have gone up [the] height of [the] mountains, [to] the remote areas of Lebanon. And I cut off {its tall cedars}, the choicest of its junipers. And I came [to] the height of its limit, the forest of its orchard.read more.
I myself dug and drank waters, and I caused all the streams of Egypt to dry up by the sole of my feet."
And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" So he said, "Who are you, Lord?" And he [said], "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting!
And Jacob remained alone, and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the dawn. And when he saw that he could not prevail against him, he struck his hip socket, so that Jacob's hip socket was sprained as he wrestled with him. Then he said, "Let me go, for dawn is breaking." But he answered, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."read more.
Then he said to him, "What [is] your name?" And he said, "Jacob." And he said, "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed."
Yahweh has a quarrel with Judah and will punish Jacob according to his ways and repay him according to his deeds. In the womb he deceived his brother, and in his manhood he struggled with God. He struggled with [the] angel and prevailed; he pleaded for his mercy. He met him at Bethel, and there he spoke with him.read more.
Yahweh the God of hosts, Yahweh [is] his renowned name!
{For this reason} also myself {always} do my best to have a clear conscience toward God and people.
"Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able to,
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, {sold into slavery to sin}. For what I am doing I do not understand, because what I want [to do], this I do not practice, but what I hate, this I do. But if what I do not want [to do], this I do, I agree with the law that [it is] good.read more.
But now I am no longer the one doing it, but sin that lives in me. For I know that good does not live in me, that is, in my flesh. For the willing is present in me, but the doing [of] the good [is] not. For the good that I want [to do], I do not do, but the evil that I do not want [to do], this I do. But if what I do not want [to do], this I am doing, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin that lives in me. Consequently, I find the principle with me, the one who wants to do good, that evil is present with me. For I joyfully agree with the law of God in my inner person, but I observe another law in my members, at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that exists in my members. Wretched man [that] I [am]! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks [be] to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself with my mind am enslaved to the law of God, but with my flesh [I am enslaved] to the law of sin.
And everyone who competes exercises self-control in all [things]. Thus those [do so] in order that they may receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable [one]. Therefore I run in this way, not as [running] aimlessly; I box in this way, not as beating the air. But I discipline my body and subjugate [it], lest somehow [after] preaching to others, myself should become disqualified.
so that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already received [this], or [have] already been made perfect, but I press on if indeed I may lay hold of [that] for which also I was laid hold of by Christ.read more.
Brothers, I do not consider myself to have laid hold of [it]. But [I do] one [thing], forgetting the things behind and straining toward the things ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
For to this [end] we labor and suffer reproach, because we have put our hope in [the] living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of believers.
You have not yet resisted to the point of [shedding your] blood [as you] struggle against sin.
Epaphras, who is [one] of you, greets you, a slave of Christ always struggling on behalf of you in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.
And there is no one who calls on your name, who pulls himself up to keep hold of you, for you have hidden your face from us, and melted us into the hand of our iniquity.
And being in anguish, he began praying more fervently and his sweat became like drops of blood falling down to the ground.]]
And Moses returned to Yahweh and said, "Lord, why have you brought trouble to this people? Why ever did you send me? And from the time I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble to this people, and you have certainly not delivered your people."
So why did you bring me forth from the womb? I should have passed away, {and no eye should have seen me}.
When I thought about [how] to understand this, it [was] troubling in my eyes
Why do you reject my soul, O Yahweh? [Why] do you hide your face from me? I [am] afflicted and perishing from [my] youth. I bear your terrors. I am distraught. Your burning anger has passed over me; your sudden fears have destroyed me.read more.
They surround me like water all the day; they circle about me altogether. You have removed loved one and friend far from me, my acquaintances [far from my] darkness.
O Yahweh, how long shall I cry for help and you will not listen? [How long] will I cry out to you, "Violence!" and you will not save? Why do you cause me to see evil [while] you look at trouble? Destruction and violence happen before me; contention and strife arise. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice does not go forth perpetually. For the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice goes forth perverted.
