Power (Principles, promises, power and presence V)

The famous evangelist D. L. Moody is said to have sought to rise to the challenge “The world has yet to see what God can do with a man (person) who is fully committed to Him.” The impetus for this series of posts of which this is the fourth, came from the comparison of “God as you understand him to be,” in classical twelve-step programs, with Jesus Christ as the supreme higher power. In any case however, the first three steps have to do with seeing our need of our higher Power, understanding that He/she or it has the power to help us, and then turning our will and our lives over to the care and control of the said higher power.

So the whole focus of this set of posts, is to unpack the superiority of Christ as our higher Power, and in particular to speak about four advantages that are summed up in the four words principles, promises, power and presence. Today we are looking at “power.”

The secret of rising to the challenge mentioned above, is all about entering into partnership with God. There is much truth in the saying “Without God man cannot, without man God will not.” Surely this is what Paul meant when he called the Christian a co-labourer with Christ (1 Corinthians 3:9). In fact one of the primary tasks of Christian growth is to move from the various stages either of complete helplessness, or total independence. As in any healthy adult relationship, a primary goal is interdependence, where each side plays their appropriate part.

There is an interesting phrase in 2 Corinthians 12:9, where Paul says “When I am weak then I am strong.” This phrase is nonsense to the unbeliever, but to the one who is starting to know the power of God, it makes perfect sense. In helping him move from his self righteous independence to interdependence, the Lord had to allow things in Paul’s life that completely overwhelmed him. Paul describes this experience as something akin to a death sentence. Seeing God working through this Paul tells us “We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1:9, 10).

So this is the first part of what I am trying to say when I am talking about the power that comes from having Christ as our higher power. I am talking about the power to go on and not to give up, the power that we find in trusting Him in every and all circumstances. I that is the power that comes the intervention of God in our lives. Sometimes God changes the circumstances. But sometimes, in my experience, He leaves us in the circumstances but gives us the power, the strength to carry on. The Scripture puts it this way, He is a very present help in time of need (Psalm 46:1).

The other aspect of God’s power, comes in the form of the miraculous. I’m not saying that the deliverance that Paul was talking about above is not miraculous, I am really wanting to emphasize that there are times when God circumvents the normal laws of nature. I am talking about what happens when we lay hands on and pray for the sick and they are healed in Jesus name. For the first twenty or so years of my christian life I saw very little of this. In the last twenty or so years I am seeing more and more of it. Indeed I have received miraculous healings in my own body, as well as healings in the fellowship, and beyond.

Some will find this very hard to believe, and part of this is that we live in a culture of unbelief, where we do not expect the miraculous to happen. And because we don’t believe, we don’t ask, and when we don’t ask, as James tells us, we do not receive (James 4: 2). So then part of the challenge that D. L. Moody sought to rise to, is believing that what God says He will do in his Word, He will do. I am far from fully there yet, but I am seeking to press into His promise “Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I am doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12).

Father, I read in your Word “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us” (Ephesians 3:20). Lord I need a revelation of this truth, a revelation that allows me to enter into it in a practical way. Lord I understand that this is nothing less than the declaration “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Lord I believe, help my unbelief. In Jesus Name Amen