Now to him 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 NIV
Paul, writing here, was a man of many experiences. He had lived the wild life, doing his best the way he knew to defend the faith of his fathers. A new wave was starting, and he would do all he could to stop it from tampering with the Jewish legacies passed on to him. That was zeal; the problem was that he had not yet encountered the power that gives zeal direction, focus and impact. On his way to Damascus in pursuit of his Jewish legacy, he met with that power and his life changed completely. Oh, the zeal was still there, but now it had the right foundation, the right message, the right audience and the right eternal focus. That power is the focus of the extract for today.
A man can only speak of that which he has personally experienced. Time will tell if my account is from a place of hearsay or as a witness. Paul here was speaking from the perspective of a witness, as his life would testify. He had seen what the power of God could do in a man's life; took him from being a zealot without eternal focus to a zealot bound for heaven and taking as many people with him. Paul could never have imagined what God's ultimate plan for him was, but he got to a point in his life when he knew that it could only have been God all the way. I can dream, but God has the capacity and ability to throw away the known template and mold his own. That is power, real, raw and relevant, no matter the generation.
That is the power Paul describes here. It is power beyond man's imagination or limits, and is the secret to unlocking all that God is and can do. It is his power, not mine, yet my life is the platform for the display of that power. My life will testify to the proof of God's power. How would the world know I have and serve the living God if there is no outer proof of the miraculous and the supernatural? Even in the mundane routine of daily life, God's power must shine through and make the people sit up and take notice. I cannot limit the power, but I can limit its operation in my own life. If it does not shine out of me, I am the one who has not allowed it. It is not subject to the will of man, but I can subject it to my freewill.
I have the responsibility to give him room in my life. God wants to show off his power in and through me. He is the light of the world, and if He lives in me, I am also that light. The work is first internal, before it is seen on the external. It is that inner work that becomes the force that must be reckoned with. When that power meets a willing heart, the results can never be ignored. Is my life a place where God's power can find full expression, or am I living a lie, laying claim to what I do not have? Remember, God will do his part; I just must play my own part. God's time of favour is here.
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