The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"The Power of His Might"
What if we had opened our Bible this morning to discover God's protocols for our lives had changed. In particular, what if we read in the Apostle Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, "Be strong in the power of your own might" rather than "Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might" (Ephesians 6:10).
Thankfully, God's Word abides forevermore as it is and always will be. Thus, born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ awoke to yet another day of living not by our own faithfulness, dedication, determination, and ability, but rather by the life and power of our risen Savior.
"And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work" (II Corinthians 9:8).
"Let us have grace, that we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear" (Acts 12:28).
God's unmerited favor, presence, and involvement in our lives - His grace in the Lord Jesus - supplies the dynamic motivation and enabling whereby Christ lives in us, we live by Him, and our Heavenly Father's will can be accomplished in the only way possible. As the Lord Jesus told His disciples, "Without Me, ye can do nothing" (John 15:5). Many years later, however, Paul affirmed, "I can do all things." What made the difference? "Though Christ which strengtheneth me" declared the Apostle of the holy means whereby we fulfill God's mandates (Philippians 4:13).
Believers do not and must not live this day as if we are alone, or as if life depended on our own strength and abilities. We could never begin to fulfill God's standards by such inadequate capacities. If, however, the risen Christ dwells in us through Holy Spirit, and if He actively works in us "both to will and to do of His good pleasure," then we can live in a manner pleasing to God, blessed to others, and fulfilling to our own hearts (Philippians 2:13). "We shall live with Him by the power of God" confessed the Paul who so well knew that the life to which our Heavenly Father calls us requires the life of Christ He gave to us when we believed. "The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" '(Galatians 2:21).
Our Lord's truth had not changed when we awoke to this new day. No trace of a requirement had snuck onto the pages of Scripture whereby we will have to live as if by our own abilities. Yes, the teeming and infinitely dynamic life of the risen Christ abides in our redeemed and resurrected spirits. The command so pregnant with promise holds fast: "Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might." Let us rejoice and go forth in the expectation that as we remember and affirm by faith "the power that worketh in us," we will find ourselves enabled to live far, far beyond our own means in the power that created and sustains the universe, but even more, that raised our Lord Jesus from the dead.
"Ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who raised Him from the dead."
(Colossians 2:12)
"I will dwell in them and walk in them."
(II Corinthian s 6:16)
"What is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places."
(Ephesians 1:19-20)
Weekly Memory Verse
"The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me. Thy mercy, O LORD, endureth forever."
(Psalm 138:8).
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