Christ is the One who strengthens us to do God’s will. It is He who enables us for service. We see Jesus giving power to His twelve disciples to preach a message of repentance and to minister to people. The word ‘power’ comes from the Greek word ‘dunamis’, from which we get our English words ‘dynamite’ and ‘dynamic’. All the power to serve in the kingdom of God comes from above. The gospel is ‘the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.’ The Holy Spirit bestows power upon believers. The Lord Jesus Christ is powerful, but you and I aren’t powerful at all! But the good news is that God’s power and strength are made perfect in these weak vessels.
You see, saints, we are totally dependent upon God to work in our lives. We need His power to love with Jesus’ kind of love. We need His power to extend Jesus’ kind of forgiveness. We need His power to walk as Jesus walked. I’m grateful that Jesus offers this power to me because I am indeed, in my flesh, in my humanity, incredibly weak. My ‘old man’ wants nothing to do with Christ, His will, or His kingdom because my old sin nature is rotten to the core. Thank God for Christ’s delivering power! Thank God for the power of His comfort! Thank God for the power of His grace!
As we share Christ and what He has done, is doing, and has promised to do in our lives, we are strengthened. As we meditate upon the grace provided by Jesus Christ, we are strengthened. Just as Jesus stood by the apostle Paul and strengthened him, He stands by each of us to strengthen and encourage us today.
‘Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?’ (That is, by your own efforts.) Let’s open our hearts today and ask the Lord to truly fill us with His Spirit and power so that we may truly say that it is God who is working in us ‘both to will and to do of His good pleasure.’
