35 Bible Verses about Striving With God
Most Relevant Verses
We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice speaking to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
Look, God and His priests are with us at our head. The trumpets are ready to sound the charge against you. Israelites, don’t fight against the Lord God of your ancestors, for you will not succeed.”
Devise a plan; it will fail.
Make a prediction; it will not happen.
For God is with us.
Therefore, if God gave them the same gift that He also gave to us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, how could I possibly hinder God?”
The kings of the earth take their stand,
and the rulers conspire together
against the Lord and His Anointed One:
“Let us tear off their chains
and free ourselves from their restraints.” The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
the Lord ridicules them.
read more.
Then He speaks to them in His anger
and terrifies them in His wrath:
A wicked man writhes in pain all his days;
only a few years are reserved for the ruthless.
Dreadful sounds fill his ears;
when he is at peace, a robber attacks him.
He doesn’t believe he will return from darkness;
he is destined for the sword.
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He wanders about for food, saying, “Where is it?”
He knows the day of darkness is at hand.
Trouble and distress terrify him,
overwhelming him like a king prepared for battle.
For he has stretched out his hand against God
and has arrogantly opposed the Almighty.
He rushes headlong at Him
with his thick, studded shields.
“You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit; as your ancestors did, so do you.
But who are you, a mere man, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”
Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him?
Let him who argues with God give an answer.
“Woe to the one who argues with his Maker—
one clay pot among many.
Does clay say to the one forming it,
‘What are you making?’
Or does your work say,
‘He has no hands’?
How absurd is the one who says to his father,
‘What are you fathering?’
or to his mother,
‘What are you giving birth to?’”
This is what the Lord,
the Holy One of Israel and its Maker, says:
“Ask Me what is to happen to My sons,
and instruct Me about the work of My hands.
Then the whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night. All the Israelites complained about Moses and Aaron, and the whole community told them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to die by the sword? Our wives and little children will become plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” read more.
So they said to one another, “Let’s appoint a leader and go back to Egypt.”
These are the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites quarreled with the Lord, and He showed His holiness to them.
Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah,
as on that day at Massah in the wilderness
where your fathers tested Me;
they tried Me, though they had seen what I did.
but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You may even be found fighting against God.” So they were persuaded by him.
David said to the Philistine: “You come against me with a dagger, spear, and sword, but I come against you in the name of Yahweh of Hosts, the God of Israel’s armies—you have defied Him.
this is the word the Lord has spoken against him:
Virgin Daughter Zion
despises you and scorns you:
Daughter Jerusalem shakes her head
behind your back.
Who is it you have mocked and blasphemed?
Who have you raised your voice against
and lifted your eyes in pride?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
You have mocked the Lord through your servants.
You have said, “With my many chariots
I have gone up to the heights of the mountains,
to the far recesses of Lebanon.
I cut down its tallest cedars,
its choice cypress trees.
I came to its distant heights,
its densest forest.
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I dug wells and drank water.
I dried up all the streams of Egypt
with the soles of my feet.”
Falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” “Who are You, Lord?” he said.
“I am Jesus, the One you are persecuting,” He replied.
Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that He could not defeat him, He struck Jacob’s hip socket as they wrestled and dislocated his hip. Then He said to Jacob, “Let Me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me.” read more.
“What is your name?” the man asked.
“Jacob,” he replied. “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” He said. “It will be Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.”
The Lord also has a dispute with Judah.
He is about to punish Jacob according to his ways;
He will repay him based on his actions.
In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel,
and as an adult he wrestled with God.
Jacob struggled with the Angel and prevailed;
he wept and sought His favor.
He found him at Bethel,
and there He spoke with him.
read more.
Yahweh is the God of Hosts;
Yahweh is His name.
“Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because I tell you, many will try to enter and won’t be able
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am made out of flesh, sold into sin’s power. For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. read more.
So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but it is the sin that lives in me. So I discover this principle: When I want to do what is good, evil is with me. For in my inner self I joyfully agree with God’s law. But I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this dying body? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh, to the law of sin.
Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything. However, they do it to receive a crown that will fade away, but we a crown that will never fade away. Therefore I do not run like one who runs aimlessly or box like one beating the air. Instead, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified.
My goal is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead. Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. read more.
Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
In fact, we labor and strive for this, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of everyone, especially of those who believe.
In struggling against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
Epaphras, who is one of you, a slave of Christ Jesus, greets you. He is always contending for you in his prayers, so that you can stand mature and fully assured in everything God wills.
No one calls on Your name,
striving to take hold of You.
For You have hidden Your face from us
and made us melt because of our iniquity.
Being in anguish, He prayed more fervently, and His sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.]
So Moses went back to the Lord and asked, “Lord, why have You caused trouble for this people? And why did You ever send me? Ever since I went in to Pharaoh to speak in Your name he has caused trouble for this people, and You haven’t delivered Your people at all.”
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Lord, why do You reject me?
Why do You hide Your face from me?
From my youth,
I have been afflicted and near death.
I suffer Your horrors; I am desperate.
Your wrath sweeps over me;
Your terrors destroy me.
read more.
They surround me like water all day long;
they close in on me from every side.
You have distanced loved one and neighbor from me;
darkness is my only friend.
How long, Lord, must I call for help
and You do not listen
or cry out to You about violence
and You do not save?
Why do You force me to look at injustice?
Why do You tolerate wrongdoing?
Oppression and violence are right in front of me.
Strife is ongoing, and conflict escalates.
This is why the law is ineffective
and justice never emerges.
For the wicked restrict the righteous;
therefore, justice comes out perverted.
