The other
day, my almost 3 year old was helping me with the laundry…a task I will most
certainly encourage! After throwing the
clothes in the dryer together, he wanted to push the buttons to start the
dryer "all by himself". He wanted to push the red button
first (which was the stop/pause button) and I tried to explain to him that
unless he pressed the power button first, all of the other buttons were
useless.
This is a
very familiar concept to us in our power laden culture. We rely heavily on electrical power, battery
power, etc. It is common sense to us
that if the cell phone is powered off, then it cannot make or receive calls,
send texts, take pictures, or do anything else that we do with our phones
today. If the lamp is not first plugged
in, it will not work. We even see this
principle to be true in our bodies and the way we are made. Our spinal cord is like the power cable to
the rest of our body. In cases where the
spinal cord is severed, even though the arms and the legs have no problem in
themselves, they become completely useless if their power source has been cut
off.
As I meditated
on this concept, the Lord showed me that the same principle is very much true in our spiritual life as well. If we do not first plug into the power
source, every other attempt to do any work in our own strength is useless and
ineffective.
How often do
we jump up and attempt to start the day and forget to connect to our power
source? Do you find yourself frustrated,
feeling like you can never get it all done, inefficient, ineffective? Are you drained, weary, continually tired
feeling like you have no energy to tackle the tasks before you? I would propose that maybe it is time to
recharge your battery, maybe you need to remember to switch on your power.
But what is
this power source? Let’s see what the
Bible has to say:
1
Cor 1:24 Yet to those who are called, both Jews and
Greeks, Christ is God's power and God's wisdom
Acts 10:38 “…God
anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and … he went around doing good and healing all who were
under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
Luke 1:35 The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High
will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
1 Thes 1:5 because our gospel
came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit
and with deep conviction. …
Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit
comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and
Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
Rom 15:13 May the God
of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Isaiah
40:29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
John 15:4-5 Abide in me (Jesus), and I
in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the
vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I
am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is
that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
There
are so so so many more verses I could keep listing about power, but I believe a
few things have been made clear.
1.
God is power.
We see in these verses all three parts of the Trinity as the
source of power. The Most High God, the
Father, is the source of power and thus endues and anoints with power. Jesus Christ, the son of God and God Himself,
is the Power of God. The Holy Spirit,
who is the Spirit of God and the third person of the Trinity, is the power of
God poured out on us.
2.
The Gospel is Power.
The Gospel is not merely something to be shared with someone
once to bring them to salvation in Christ.
The Gospel is more than just good news for unbelievers. The Gospel is greater than just words. The Gospel is power! The Word, or the Gospel, has always been
(John 1:1-2) and always will be (1 Peter 1:24-25). When we receive and abide in the Word of God,
we receive and abide in Power.
3.
The Power of God is made available to us.
It is amazing to me to think that not only is God powerful and
the source of all power, but that God makes that power available to us through
Himself. He does not hoard it and keep
it all, He doesn’t Lord it over us as a cruel master, He is not corrupted by
it. But rather, in fullness of power He
invites us to come to Him and tap into His limitless power. He invites us to abide in Him. He offers up His Holy Spirit to come and to
dwell in us and anoint us with power from on high.
Wow, what an offer! My question of response to you is, are you
taking Him up on this offer? Are you
tapping into God, the source of all power, by abiding in His presence, His
Word, and receiving His Holy Spirit? I
will leave you with one final thought that I read from my Streams in the Desert devotional this morning:
“We are able to have as much of God as we want. Christ puts the key to His treasure chest in
our hands and invites us to take all we desire.
If someone is allowed into a bank vault, told to help himself to the
money, and leaves without one cent, whose fault is it if he remains poor? And whose fault is it that Christians usually
have such meager portions of the free riches of God?”
I pray today that you
will tap into the limitless and powerful presence of God. I pray that you will indulge deeply in the
free riches of God. And indeed, as Paul
writes in His letter to the Romans, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope
by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
