The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Personal. Powerful"
On at least eleven occasions, the Psalmist referred to God as his strength.
"The LORD is my strength" (Psalm 118:14).
The references address God as being our strength. The New Testament echoes this truth, declaring Christ Himself as "the power of God" (I Corinthians 1:24). This makes the matter of availing ourselves of God's enabling in personal terms. Our Heavenly Father does not empower born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ by an injection or infusion of strength as a reality separate from Himself. He rather reveals His Person and working for us and within us through the indwelling Holy Spirit as the means whereby we do things far beyond our native human capabilities.
The Apostle Paul spoke to this reality in perhaps the most superlative Biblical expression of God's promise to enable us:
"Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen" (Ephesians 3:20-21).
Note "the power that worketh in us" accounts for God doing "exceeding, abundantly above all we ask or think." Recall also that Christ is Himself "the power of God" for us, as executed in us through the indwelling Spirit of God. This reveals that if we are to know our Lord in powerful terms, we must know Him in personal terms. God does not enable believers from afar, but from within. The indwelling Holy Spirit accounts for such grace, and applies Divine enabling to those who seek to heed the command to "be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might" (Ephesians 6:10).
Our role involves response to the Spirit's moving within us to lead us to the throne of grace, and personal communion with our Heavenly Father that results in faith and faithfulness. Time spent in His Word and in prayer, fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and the expectation of our Lord providentially meeting us along the pathways of our lives will go far in the personal resulting in the powerful. Thereby, we avail ourselves of God's presence through the communion with Him that results in conduct enabled by Him. "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (II Corinthians 3:18).
A Person, actually, the triune personhood of the living God, accounts for the power known by those who walk with Him. The Psalmist knew this. We know it better, in the light of the completed Bible he did not possess, and also the indwelling Holy Spirit not yet given in his day. Our Father desires to be known, and thus personally experienced in our hearts, and in our hands and feet. Nothing else will satisfy Him, nor will anything else both fulfill and empower us. The personal. The powerful. These gifts of grace in Christ go Hand in hand, Heart in heart. The prophet joins the Psalmist as the voice through which the Voice beckons our hearts to His heart, and the glories that will ensue…
"Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness."
(Isaiah 41:10)
Weekly Memory Verse
Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."
(I Corinthians 1:30)
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