I've Got the Power!

 



I pray 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 incomparable 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.--Ephesians 1:18-20

If I interpret this correctly, Faith = Power.

Faith, which is a gift from God, provides a gateway through which He downloads the very same power He employed to raise Christ from the dead. This, indeed, is the 'incomparably great' power to which this verse refers.

The Greek word for "heart" here is "kardios," and means inward illumination or visceral understanding: a knowledge, then, that comes through faith.

Faith brings understanding, not intellectual acknowledgement, but something deeper.
This is why God wants me to have faith. He does not look for some kind of rock star adoration. He does not want me to throw my intelligence to the curb. He does not want a mimicking automaton. Instead, He knows that faith connects me to Him in a way nothing else can. Faith plugs me into His power and through that connection, brings the glory and joy He always intended for me and still wants for me.

Faith, my friend, brings power. The same power He used to raise Jesus Christ also raises me.

The 40th Power

For thirty-nine chapters, the book of Isaiah cries out blistering warnings: cities and civilizations will fall. Jerusalem, Egypt, Moab, Babylon will be defeated. The Nile will dry up. The land will be desolate. God will enact judgement on the idolatrous.

Isaiah sings a sad litany of sin, details the error of those who said they loved God. It builds a tower made of example after example of wrongdoing and then topples it with one wide swipe. God's people bury themselves in the rubble, a pile that dwarfs 9/11 in that it is anchored by sin and condemned by eternal judgement.

Then, I turn the page.

Comfort my people, say your God. Speak consolingly of Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her period of exile has been completed, that her iniquity has been forgiven...A voice calls out in the wilderness--clear the way of God; make a straight path in the desert, a road for our God.--Isaiah 40:1-3

Blossoms rise in the field, voices open in song, and God carries his people on eagles' wings. Suddenly, hope and strength grow where only dust and ashes lay. But they do not come on the strength of men. They come only with the power of God.

Ascend upon a high mountain, O herald of Zion; raise your voice with strength! Raise it, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!"--Isaiah 40:9

Men, then, remain weak and corrupt. If they finally triumph, it is because God carries them in His mighty arms. If they rise from ashes, He clears their eyes. Beginning with Chapter 40, Isaiah draws a stunning picture of the heights to which God can raise men who look to Him. He shows us our future. He shows us our Savior.

Exponents in math show growth densely multiplied and mathematicians call them powers for a reason. Each successive power builds on its predecessors, zeros upon zeros, until they soar in imagination. Isaiah's prophecy builds in much the same way, and by Chapter 40, he has taken us nearly to heaven. From then on, we see visions and dreams and images of God's beautiful powers that inspire and bring hope to anyone sad and torn. Isaiah, through intense contrast, sings of God's glory in a way that multiplies grace and soothes our spirit.

Waiting for Freedom

I've heard stories about soldiers who missed news that their war had ended. Either they hid in some remote location for months or years, still nurturing terror for their own particular conflict, or they lived under the torment of captors who never told them they'd already lost. Either way, these poor souls had already been liberated, but didn't know it.

I am reminded that, if I believe in God, if I acknowledge that an entity exists who created me and our entire astounding, complex, beautiful world, then I open the door to a complete other existence. If God exists, so does eternity, so does evil, and so do other forces we call names like angels, demons, spirits, forces, powers, dominions, heavenly realms. I can't touch them or will to experience them in any way, but because God exists, they are there, all around, all the time.

Men like me were made to have dominion over the earth, but we share that dominion with all these other forces and beings, and with God having power over all. Our world approximates a battlefield, squirming with wounded, some of whom who don't even know they are hurt, some who can't or won't see the struggle going on around them.

I am often like the soldier who had no idea his own war had already ended. The enemy is here, as are my comrades, but I can't see them. How can I possibly know what is happening? I am detached, deliberately kept out of the supernatural loop, yet engaged. I know opposition and attack. I recognize rescue, but don't see what's going on at the command post.

I live in the limbo where the battle continues even though the war has already been won. God did this on the cross, declared victory, and sealed my fate. My place awaits. Until then, I have to keep my gun loaded and ready at my side.

And, having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.--Colossions 2:15
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms.--Ephesians 2:6

Fame and Holiness

What are dreams made of? Not the dreams we have while sleeping, but those we live with, the ones we hold before us while making decisions, while planning the future. Yesterday, I saw again how deeply recognition plays a part in those dreams. It's not enough to be an architect, or a musician, or teacher. Somebody needs to know our names. We desire significance.

You, however, do not agree.

As for those who seemed important, whatever they were makes no difference. God does not judge by external appearance.--Galatians 2:6

Whatever gifts You give me, You give by intention. If I have physical strength, You expect me to use it; if I have imagination, You expect me to use it; if I have intelligence, You expect me to use it, but you do it to better define my relationship to You, not my relationship to other men. Fame, position, title, caste, nobility, office all define us, but only before one another. They provide platforms of easy, thoughtless, relation based on external importance, meaningless before You.

President. General. Winner. Her majesty. Professor. Doctor. Reverend. Chief. Supervisor. First Assistant Bookkeeper. As titles measure accomplishment in obedience to your commands, they have meaning. As they become vehicles of pride or ends in themselves, titles become snares.

I am to love You first, work for You first, serve You first. My intersection with other men can never obscure my vision of You. Whatever success I attain, whatever praise or recognition, must be measured not against other men, but against what I have done in obedience to your specific command to me. I can easily succeed before men, but fail before You. This is holiness: the measure of my success in seeking You, finding You, and obeying You with joy.

So Close in This First Hour

Around here, summer nights often bring sudden storms. Thundering, shaking rumbles become a startling alarm reminding me that men do not comprise the most powerful force on earth. I remember that You never appear to men in sun-bathed meadows, but in fire and flash. You dwell nearer in a thunderstorm.

I doodle through so much of life...sashaying from one task to the next, making phone calls, picking up a broom or a book, going to the movies. So little consequence.

Someone told me recently that most folks live a life of 25,000 hours. Only that. If that is true, and the math bears it out, of how much value is each one of those? How much have I sacrificed if I lose the full value in even one of those hours?

But hours with You are never wasted. Your very presence demands significance. And I think you intend us to understand this, too. I have always though that life is more important than most people suspect.

You gave life, above all precious gifts, and expect me to LIVE it.

For those God foreknew, He also predestined, to be confirmed to the likeness of His Son, so that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called. Those He called, he also justified. Those He justified, He also glorified. --Romans 8:29-30

My life draws an unbroken line from Your glory through all of creation to my own glory, a superb gift of eternity directly from You. 

You make me, you choose me, you call me, you save me, you transform me. You give me Yourself.

This is LIFE. The same life I wake up to every morning. Each of the 25,000 hours gifts from You to be lived with and for You.

You knew this from the creation of the world and You flash Your presence in shining thunderbolts before a rising sun just to say 'Hello.' You want me to know that You are near and sharing Your best. This is the Life You have put in me, miraculous Life, unreproducable Life, resounding with a thunderous crash, echoing Your glory across the whole earth.

Swine in Pearls

They have chosen their own ways and their souls delight in their abominations.--Isaiah 66:4a

I can still delight in abominations. I can support them, work for them, grab them with two eager hands and draw them close. I can justify them, decorate them so they look beautiful, put them on display and show them off. I can spend my life studying or saving for them, I can collect them; I can whisper in their ear in the quiet dark of night.

But this is what waits for me if I do:

So I will choose harsh treatment for them and will bring upon them what they dread...--Isaiah 66:4b

I get what I choose. If I choose abominations, I get them. But if I choose You, I get You. It's simple, really. You call constantly. You rise up before me, moment by moment, waiting for me to look for You.

...for when I spoke, no one listened. They did evil in my sight and chose what displeases me.--Isaiah 66:4c

But it does not have to be this way. I have to hear You when You call, so an abomination is anything that muffles my ears. I have to see You all around me, so an abomination is anything that blocks my view. It is You, always You.

I am still confident of this--I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.--Psalm 27:13

Whoa there, feelings!

I've been trying to understand emotion's place in my faith life. The Bible is full of commands to action and obedience, but as far as I can tell, the only emotion You recommend to me is joy.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds--James 1:2
Shout with joy to God, all the earth!--Psalm 66:10
Be joyful always--1 Thessalonians 5:16
Be of good cheer--John 16:33


You are not nearly as keen regarding other emotions:

Do not be afraid or discouraged--2 Chronicles 20:15
Refrain from anger and turn from wrath--Psalm 37:8
Do not be anxious about anything--Philippians 4:6
Do not sorrow--Nehemiah 8:10
Brothers, we do not want you to...grieve like the rest of men--1Thessalonian 4:13

Emotions, evidently, are not my friends. And yet, they constantly drive me. They prompt me to act. They lift me out of the realm of the ordinary. Hmmm. Maybe that's the problem.

Emotions elevate everything, and often falsely. They can make me believe something is important when it may be trivial or foolish. They can manufacture false relevance. They can cut off experience and wisdom. They can cancel rationality and obedience. They can make me believe in the necessity to act in a certain way, even when I know better. They can cut off my clear vision to You.

Emotions can have legitimate uses, too, but only if I discipline them in the same way I discipline everything else in my life. I need to form and use reins for emotions in the same way I would need to rein in a wild horse. You give permission for only one real emotion--joy in knowing You.

The joy of the Lord is your strength--Nehemiah 8:10

Indeed.