The whole armour of God (II) Stand empowered in Christ in the dynamite of His might

I tweaked  “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might” (Ephesians 6:10 NKJV). The Greek verb to be strong is a  compound  “en-dunamai.”   We get the word dynamite from the second part. And the sense of the Greek, is that we are to cloth ourselves with His dunamos power. There are in fact three different Greek words in this single sentence,  that have to do with His strength, His power and His might. It points to the superlative,   echoing Paul’s description of dunamos   as that   "which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come” (1:20, 21). And it is this very same power with which we are to cloth ourselves.   Lastly, in terms of the exposition of the verse, there is  no “the” in the Greek before kurios (Lord). I translated this as Christ,  because He  used it for Himself in Luke 6:46, for example. The point I am wanting to make, is that our empowerment with His dynamite power, is only found as we stand rooted and grounded “in Christ.”

There are two prayers Paul prays for us, concerning these things. Firstly he prays that we might have a revelation of the exceeding greatness of His mighty, dynamite power towards us. Secondly, that according to the riches of His glory, we be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man (Ephesians 1:19; 3:16). No doubt Paul prayed this for himself, and as the saying goes, we need to be careful what we pray for. Speaking of his troubles in Asia he says “We were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life.” He continues “We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8,9). Related to what I am wanting to say here is the Lord’s statement to Paul in “My strength is made perfect in weakness,” and Paul’s statement “When I am weak then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9, 10).

The point then, is that it seem the dynamite power of Christ will come to rest on us, only when we have gone through circumstances where we find ourselves in weaknesses and infirmities (verse 9). The phrase “the sentence of death” that Paul uses here, is reminiscent of the sayings of Jesus “He who will loose his life for my sake will gain it,” and “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” (Luke 17:33; 9:23). We are called to die, to die to self. But again with Paul, we need to count all things loss in order that we might gain Christ and the dynamite power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings (Philippians 3:8-10). We can't have one without the other!

Father, Yours is the kingdom, the (dynamite) power and the glory. Thank You that You made it possible for us to be clothed with Your power. But we cannot experience this unless we are willing to share in the fellowship of Your sufferings. I surrender again this morning Lord, and I commit again, with Your help to never say “no” to You, nor to be offended , in Jesus Name Amen