Messages

The Word: What’s Your Power Source? Ephesians 1:17-21

Ephesians 1:17-21

“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation, so that you may know Him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”

 This past month most of Southern California, Arizona and New Mexico experienced a widespread power outage. For one evening our electrical world shut down and, therefore, our lives too. Grocery stores and gas stations were closed, street signals became four way stops- resulting in horrendous traffic, cell phone and internet services were not working and for a brief period of time those small plastic cards most of us carry around in our wallets possessed not even an ounce of power as all credit card machines and atm’s were down as well. I think it is fair to say that most individuals experienced a feeling of panic, even if only for a brief moment.

 This experience brought me to realize how utterly dependent we are upon electrical power in order to carry out most of our daily tasks. It is easy to go about our daily routines failing to recognize the important role electricity plays, only to realize our level of dependency upon it when it is taken away. The truth is we rely upon “power” to the extent that without it our technologically advanced world literally comes to a halt. It is important to realize that this same principle is true in our spiritual lives as well, however, on an even grander scale. Without God’s power we can literally do nothing! (John 15:5). The problem is that we too often neglect Christ’s power, failing to recognize its importance in our lives until we have hit rock bottom or have come to a dead-end road where literally we have no where else to turn and are finally reminded that we have access to a God “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine ACCORDING TO HIS POWER that is at work within us.” (Ephesians 3:20, emphasis added) God’s word encourages that, “if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain ‘move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20.) What would it look like if we lived our lives in such a way where we exercised this “mustard seed” faith and rested not upon man’s wisdom but upon God’s power? (1 Corinthians 2:5)