Jim
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 Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 9:28 pm Post subject: power to live -- right now |
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The Power of God to Live -- Right Now
Ever feel powerless in your life? Does it ever seem that circumstances
are just stacked too high against you? And when you call out to God nothing
seems to happen?
Eye witnesses say that Jesus Himself cried out from the cross, “My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?” Yet he was not rescued from the cross. He
died there, was buried in a borrowed tomb until better arrangements could be
made, and that was the end of God’s Messiah.
Or so some thought. And it was not just Jesus’ enemies who believed he was
forsaken by God. Even his own disciples had lost all hope. They were
crushed under the loss, the death of Jesus Christ at the hands of those who
rejected the Gospel.
It’s all an illusion, though. No one on the face of the whole earth is ever
separated from the power of God. Not even those who never heard of God.
And especially those who know God through faith in Jesus Christ cannot be
robbed of God’s power -- not even in death. Wicked men may kill the body,
but they cannot rob a human soul of God’s power and help. Spiritual forces
of evil may attack and destroy one’s possessions, one’s health, and even one’s
hopes. But they cannot remove anyone from God’s power or ability to
protect.
Remember Job, who lost everything? Remember the 3 Hebrew children who were
tied with ropes and then thrown alive into a blazing furnace? Remember
Jesus who suffered horribly and then died on a Roman cross while being
mocked by his enemies?
In the case of Job, God vindicated him, resting all his possessions and his
station in life. In the case of those three Hebrews, they were not burned
at all in that furnace, but were able to walk out on their own two feet,
even though the men who threw them in were killed by the heat. And as for
Jesus, he did die. In fact, the Bible says that he dismissed his spirit,
after saying, “It’s finished.” And then he descended into hell, where he
preached to spirits imprisoned, and then, on the third day, he returned to
his body and walked alive out of the tomb.
No matter the circumstances, God is with us. Even Samson of old, who
brought all of his troubles on himself, was able to call on God and to
receive the strength (the power of God) to take his enemies with him in
death, delivering Israel from years of oppressive servitude.
Who, then, or what can separate us from God’s power and help?
That’s a question the apostle Paul asks in a letter to the Roman believers
in the first century. Here’s the question in full:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or
distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As
it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted
as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than
conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death
nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor
things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be
able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
(Romans 8:35 thru 39, NKJB)
Most Christians have read or at least heard this passage before. And most
of us will agree that it is a true statement: Nothing can separate us from
God’s love. But we tend to miss the point. If nothing can truly rob us of
God’s love for us, then how do we ever allow ourselves to think that we face
any crises or circumstance without God’s power and help?
If we cannot be pulled out away from God’s love, then why are we willing to
believe that we can find ourselves outside of God’s power and help? We seem
to forget that the devil is a liar, and that he always lies about God’s
goodness and ability (or willingness) to help us.
God never forsakes his own. He does allow things to happen in our lives.
But we need to remember that He is the one who works in all circumstances
for our good. For our good, not just for his own pleasure or amusement.
God uses the very circumstances of life to teach and help us, to prepare us,
to enable us to leap higher than we ever thought we could leap. If there
were no challenges, no tests, no needs, then how would we ever push forward,
how would we grow stronger, how would we develop inside and out?
One does not become a runner by lying in bed. One does not become a
champion by avoiding the training or the match. One does not master a skill
at anything by sitting around doing nothing. The challenges of life are not
given us by God to stop us but to prepare us, train us, strengthen us, and
to toughen our resolve.
Every infant stumbles as it struggles against gravity to stand and then
walk. And falling does not prevent the same child from later running all
over the house and yard. The falling may frighten the child at first. But
it cannot prevent any of us from becoming what we really are inside: people
who walk and run and jump and play. Even crippling diseases and injuries
that rob us of our natural legs often fail to keep us down.
So it should be with every child of God. There is no being or circumstance
that can pull us away from God’s love in Christ Jesus. And that means that
no being or circumstance exists that can separate us from God’s power. We
have the power of God to do whatever needs to be done in our lives. He
loves us. He is with us. He is for us.
In the same section of Paul’s letter to the Romans, he writes: “What then
shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He
who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He
not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge
against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It
is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right
hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.” (Romans 8:31-34)
This passage makes clear that God is for us, and that no one can effectively
oppose us. God the Father gave up his own Son for us. Christ died for us
and also rose again, and now makes intercessions on our behalf at the very
throne of God. There is no room for anyone to get between us and God.
What Jesus did on the cross nearly two thousand years ago took our sin away.
Sin, therefore, no longer remains a separating wall between us and God. God
was in Christ, the Bible says, reconciling the world to himself. We can now
call on God and know that he will hear us. If we have trusted in his son,
we know that all our sins have been removed, and that we are now God’s own
children.
We have the power we need, in Christ, to accomplish whatever needs to be
done. Not only on some spiritual level (although that is where it all
begins) but on every level. We can get done in our lives what needs to be
done. We can accomplish all that we need to do.
As the Bible says, If God is for us, who can be against us? In all the
circumstances of life we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor
principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor
height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen and amen.
Jim
Power to Live -- Right Now
Originally published at:
www.goodwordusa.org
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