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INSPIRATION FOR LIVING>
ACCORDING TO THE POWER THAT WORKS IN US
February 3, 2008
The Bible says a lot about the work of the Holy Spirit in
our lives. We have captured many of these truths in the
lyrics of the songs we sing. We parrot our confessions and
our clichés about our authority over demons and all manner
of sicknesses and diseases. It is past time for us to begin
experiencing God in the ways that we sing and talk about
Him.
God still works miracles and, hence, we should be
accomplishing great things through Christ. The sick should
come to church requesting prayer, and believing that it is
more than simply a religious ritual, but that God’s healing
power still works. When we pray to God daily, we should
expect it to make a difference in our day.
Some might argue that God the miracle worker applies only
to the days of Jesus and His disciples, but consider Mark
16:17-18. Jesus told His disciples “these signs shall
follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out
devils; they shall speak with new tongues….” In this text,
Jesus is not talking about the eleven disciples but to
those who believe on Him through their preaching.
In this article I am not advocating fanaticism about the
miraculous, but I do aim to encourage you to pursue a
greater measure of God’s power working in your life. As a
start, let’s look at two fundamental facts that the Apostle
Paul shares in his letter to the Ephesians.
First, he reveals that God is “able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20a).
The phrase “exceeding abundantly above” comes from a word
that means “without limit”. In other words, if we were to
think of or ask as lofty a thing as we could imagine, what
God can do above that is off the scale! There is no way in
the English language to mentally grasp what Paul is saying
here. That’s the awesome God we are talking about.
Oftentimes, we are guilty of regarding God as if He were a
man. Greatly tested, for instance, because we can’t see a
way out we tend to feel there is none. Such hopelessness
can send you into depression if you let it. But God’s
ability to deliver us is not subject to our ability to
understand how He can. Our thinking is limited but God’s
power is limitless.
Next, Paul talks about “the power that worketh in us” (v.
20b). When we become born again, not only does God
radically change our lives, but also He puts within us an
awesome power that’s actively at work within us. All bona
fide Christians have this power working in them. It enables
them to live victoriously in this world of darkness. For
“greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world”
(1 John 4:4).
The magnitude of the power working in us differs from
person to person. To some extent that is because of God’s
purpose for us, and how He has equipped us for that
purpose. That part we cannot change. But in terms of what
He has given us to work with, we are in the driver’s seat
as to how much of it works in our lives. And as we shall
see, it behooves us to maximize this power-experience.
Since what God can do above what we ask or think is off the
scale, then whatever our problem is, it’s but a light thing
for Him. But that being a fact is not enough. We must learn
how to appropriate this fact to become our reality. For
instance, it’s a fact that we have enough food in America
to feed all of its citizens but we still have many
Americans who lack ample food. Our adequacy of food is not
relevant to those who don’t experience its benefits. It
must become their reality.
Similarly, no matter how capable God is in solving our
problems, no matter how astounding the lyrics are in the
songs we sing about His greatness, and no matter how many
confessions we parrot about the same, the only thing that
is relevant is whether we are experiencing this awesome God
in our lives.
If we could realize Paul’s aforementioned words in the life
of every Christian, this would revolutionize the local
church. The demons in hell would tremble. The miracle
working power of God would be commonplace among us. The
weak link in the chain of Paul’s words, however, lies in
this statement: “according to the power that works in us”.
Let me explain this through an analogy. The human brain is
amazing. None of us will ever come close to exhausting its
capacity. When we die we will have only scratched the
surface of what we can learn and, hence, achieve in life.
How much of our learning capacity we use has to do with us.
We must discipline ourselves to learn, we must challenge
ourselves, we must have a passion for learning, etc.
During my first year in college I made low grades. They
were enough to pass my classes, but I could have done much
better. My capacity to learn was much greater than my
grades indicated. For one thing, I treated college as I did
high school, in terms of how much time I put into studying.
When I got the revelation that college and high school were
very different in terms of what it took to succeed, I
applied myself and graduated with honors. I was no smarter
in the end than I was in the beginning. Rather, my learning
at first had been restricted by my attitude toward the
process. Same brain, different mindset.
Similarly, God’s ability is boundless. But we will only
experience His glory in our life to the degree that we
allow His power to be active in us. In other words, a
person who is not passionate toward God, and who does not
yield himself to God’s will for his life will not
experience God to the degree that someone will who does so
yield himself to God. Same God, different experiences.
What I am saying is that our passion for God determines how
much of His power works in our lives, and that in turn
determines how much He will do on our behalf.
So let’s ask ourselves an important question. What hampers
“the power that worketh in us”? We can get the gist of that
answer from the parable of the seed and the sower. When
Jesus explained the meaning of the seeds that fell among
thorns, He said, “He also that received seed among the
thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this
world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and
he becometh unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22). So the short
answer to the question is that the more we abandon the
cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches, the
more fruitful the word will become in us, and in turn the
more will be “the power that worketh in us.” And remember
that God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that
we ask or think--according to the power that worketh in us.
Christ lives in each of us once we have become born again.
But we cannot effectively live for ourselves and live for
Him at the same time. The more we die to ourselves the more
we can live for Christ. He does not force Himself on us. He
will take control of only the portion of our lives we
willingly give Him. The will of God, of course, is for us
to totally die to ourselves so Christ can live more
completely through us. It is then that God will do
“exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.”
Frank King
www.efrankking.com
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