Power of God

Eph 1:19

¹⁹ And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,

This verse in its context is a prayer Paul prays for the church at Ephesus so that they would have spirit of wisdom and understanding of Jesus and his Power. This states that our understanding of the Power of God is also not complete and we need wisdom and understanding from God for our minds to digest that.

1.       God’s Power displayed at the Cross

Rom 1:16 and 1 Cor 1:18 clearly points to the fact that the Gospel is the power of God. The Gospel essentially is the event at the Cross which brought us salvation. We also see that it is mentioned as “power of God” instead of “power from God”.  The latter points to the Holy Spirit in many verses (Luke 24:49, Acts 1:8).

But the term “power of God” gives me a different understanding. This is the display of God’s power on the Cross. We always see Jesus as a weak person who has given himself to death at the cross. But we fail to realize how powerful Jesus was at the cross.

                Christians normally see God’s power in action only in events like red sea. But God does not use the term “Almighty” here. In Exodus 14:15, God asks Moses “Wherefore criest thou unto me?”.  The sentence is like “why do you come to me for these silly matters…” Similarly, there are many such problems we take to God and think that God has to powerfully demonstrate so that we would receive support from Him.

                But, in Exodus 3:18 God does not easily command Pharoah to let His people away, but ask for permission to sacrifice in the desert for three days. We can see God taking a lot of trouble (Ex 4:8) to convince His own people.  There are many events which clearly point to the fact that the most troublesome thing to God is not Satan or any other evil spirit but the free-will God has given us. This freewill is the reason why Jesus has to come to this earth. God seeks our willing Love (Prov 23:26).

                Many verses like Ex 13:9, Deut 7:8, Deut 9:26 all point to the display of God’s power in the event of deliverance from Egypt and not the red sea. God took the longer path of convincing Pharoah to set His people free.

This is the reason why Jesus had to come to earth. God could have easily shown His power in many ways to convince us. But that will be fearful obedience from us and not loving obedience. God really seeks our love and not our fear. Fear is just a start of our relationship with God. But He really desires love from us. We were like the Pharoah, but God melted us through his Power (Cross).

So, in human history, the maximum (for full, but the largest) display of God’s power was at the cross where God chose to suffer.

2.       Our Power = Holy Spirit

In Acts 1:8 the actual greek word used is martyr and this word means witness. But, being a witness today is not equal to being a witness in those days. A witness would stand up to his faith and belief however badly he would be persecuted or killed. God gives us the power to stand up to be that kind of witness.

We can see this displayed in the life of Gandhi where he displayed his disobedience towards the English by receiving or embracing punishments. We received this power (Holy Spirit) because of His power (Cross).

2 Cor 4:7 “Treasures in Earthly Vessels”. God gives power to us earthly vessels so that everybody understands that the power is of Him. The winning element should be the gospel in us. We are just containers of the gospel and the purpose of our living is the gospel. It simply points to the fact that we should receive persecution so that the gospel wins. This is the purpose God gave us power. This power helps us suffer.

2 Cor 12:9 “for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” This verse does not explain that God gives his strength during our weakness, but it is developed or perfected during our weakness. That is only when we are weak; the strength of God is used and it develops. When we receive all blessings and perfect answers to all our problems, our strength.. i.e., the Holy Spirit is not in use.

Rom 8:36, 37 “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”  Even when we are submitted to persecution or even death, we still are counted as more than conquerors because of the power of the Holy Spirit. We actually only enjoy the authority but fail to accept persecution.

            1 Thes 3:3 says “that we are destined for afflictions”. The strength God gives (Holy Spirit) is to give us comfort, encouragement and power to suffer these afflictions and not escape them.

            Eph 3:16 “Inner Man”. The strength is to help the inner man and not the physical person for the material world.

             So, as a conclusion we should be able to understand how hard we are and how God had to use a lot of trouble in saving us. And how expensive our salvation is (treasure) and how we should use this power from God to safeguard and proclaim the salvation in spite of anything. The greatness of his power to us (Holy Spirit) is according to the power God has expressed in the persecution and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Alive to Christ

Ep 2:1 ”And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, “

We all know and have been deeply discussing how dead we are to sin after being born again. We understand that we would stop being available to sin when the devil’s darts tempt us by deception.
Being dead in sin portrays the fact that we had absolutely no reason to live and were hopeless of being saved from the deep sin we were lost into. The grace of God through Christ Jesus has given us hope to live a sinless, holy life that pleases God.
The important lesson here is to be “alive to God in Christ”. This action fulfills the purpose of our salvation.
Being alive to God directly means to be available for learning and obeying God’s words.
There are a few important items here:

1. Ep 2:5 Made alive together with Christ.
When Christ rose up from the dead, he served the purpose of being God. Being dead and rising up shows that everything that was required to be done in the life was complete. The person who rose up is new. (Remember Mary and others had difficulties recognizing Jesus). This person has no liabilities of his earlier life. 
Paul compares our salvation to Jesus’s rising up from the dead because we are expected to be regenerated equally as Christ was. (1 Cor 15:42 - 45). 

2. Raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places (Ep 2:6)
This is again a proceeding of the making alive event. Also, this is the purpose of us being resurrected. It is important for us to verify if we are being raised up after salvation. Has our righteousness (not any other blessing) has grown up and is this growth in sync with the work of the Holy Spirit. (together with Christ).

3. Exceeding Riches (Ep 2:7)
If we have really grown up in Christ, we are expected to display lots and lots of righteousness that even we do not expect from ourselves. God’s love in abundance does not give us material riches. The changes in us should be unexpected and above all other standards the world sets in us.

4. Brought near (Ep 2:13)
A live person to God is near God. He is ready for every instruction God gives. He eagerly waits for God’s instructions rather than creating excuses for disobedience. He knows that God is watching him.

5. Walking in the newness of life (Rom 6:4)
The newness of life points to the fact that God gives us a new spirit. (Ezekiel 36:26) The new spirit gives us new motives to live. Going forward, the new spirit changes our soul to perfection.

6. Reckon (Rom 6:11)
We should convince ourselves that we are alive to God in Christ Jesus. This is a statement of faith. There are no actual visible facts to help us believe. But it is important for Christians to take the leap of faith that we are completely alive to God. This being made alive is not our action. (Rom 6:23) but it is God’s gift when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our primary requirement of believing is that we believe that as Jesus was dead and He rose again gives us complete assurance that we are living now in Jesus. God gives death as a “wage” to sin, but everlasting life is not a “wage” which we deserve or obviously expect. But this is gift of God.

7. Instruments of Righteousness (Rom 6:13)
God wants us to present ourselves and our body’s members as instruments of righteousness. For God to perform righteousness, our body’s members should be useful to him. We have to voluntarily give our whole selves to God.

8. Destroy All Enemies (1 Cor 15:25,26)
One important purpose of Jesus’ rising again is that all enemies should be destroyed and at last death. For Jesus to destroy all the enemies, it is not sufficient for Him to lead a clean life. It is required that we, his chosen generation would overcome the devil and thus give Him victory. When the Lord’s requirement is met, then death will be completely destroyed. We will live forever with him. It is important that in the harvest, Christ was the first fruit and we all together form the harvest.
Most Christians say, that it is impossible for us to be perfect and Christ like. If it is not possible, God will not expect that from us. When Jesus has put “All” things under his feet, he has done that for us so that we would overcome Satan completely.

9. God of the living (Mat 22:31,32)
When Jesus was asked a trick question about resurrection, He clearly says that Abraham, Issac and Jacob are not dead. For our eyes, they seem to be dead but God says that they will rise again and so, God considers them as living people. Similarly, Jesus calls the church of Sardis (Rev 3:1) a dead one. In God’s terms, obedience, being useful to God and partaking in everlasting life only means being alive. Otherwise, we are all dead people. Also God denies being our God.. that is God does not have any relationship with us if we are dead.

Let us all consider and make sure that we are available to God as instruments He uses to perform righteousness. If not, we are still dead. We can be either completely immersed in sin, or lukewarm or alive. We see all kinds of people in the Church.