For God has not given a spirit of fear, but of power … love and of a sound mind Part (II) Power

Consider the authority that the Lord gave to the disciples, and the command to teach the the rest of us everything that He had taught them (Matthew 28:?). Put this together with the command to “heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers and cast out demon (Matthew 10:18), and you have to realize that at this point in time, the church is a lot less than what the Lord intended! To be sure there are pockets of such militancy, where many of these things are indeed taking place. But in terms of what is needed for the end time revival, we surely have a long way to go!

Part of one of Paul’s constant prayer, was that the Lord would give us a spirit of revelation in the knowledge of Him, and that we would know the exceeding greatness of the power that He has made available to us (Ephesians 1:16, 17, 19). Transformation of the individual and then moving to the church, begins with a knowledge of the truth (Romans 12:2). The part of Paul’s prayer we are considering, reveals lack in both the knowledge of Him, and of the power that is available to us (or he would not have needed to pray for it). Knowledge of Him certainly includes knowledge about Him, about His characteristics, His power His glory His holiness etc., etc. But perhaps most importantly, for being able to appropriate the power that He has made available to us, is the knowledge of who we are in Him.

When we truly know who we are in Him, know our identity in Christ, then we will also know the authority and hence the power He has made available to us. It is no coincidence that the devil's temptation of Jesus in the wilderness started with “If You are the son of God…” He went on to tempt Jesus to misuse His power (Matthew 4: 3). And what is occurring to me this morning, not for the 1st time, is that our lack of power is closely related to the fact that most of us don’t really know who we are in Christ. Oh we can likely say the words, but true faith, truly believing needs to go a lot deeper. I know it does for me!

Father, the importance of truly knowing who we are in You accounts for the severity of the battle. And it is a battle! It starts with the choice to believe, but perhaps the biggest part of the role we need to play is to pray Paul’s prayer over and over for ourselves, for our fellowship, and for the wider church. So I do so pray this morning Lord, that You would give each and every one of us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of You, so that we might know You, and the hope to which You have called us, and the riches of the glory of our inheritance in the saints, and the exceeding greatness of Your power towards us in Jesus Name Amen