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THE
POWER OF GOD
Skip Gross - Tallahassee, Florida July 2004
Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do
not know the Scriptures or the power of God." -Matthew
22:29
"I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your
power and your glory." -Psalm 63:2
"I will teach you about the power of God…"
-Job 27:11
God's infinite power allows him to easily do anything
he pleases, anywhere he pleases, at anytime he pleases.
In His awesome power God created every aspect of this
universe whether visible or invisible by merely speaking
it into existence (Hebrews 11:3). Our known universe
is 30 billion light years across. This means it would
take us 30 billion years, travelling at the speed of
light, to travel from end-to-end. Our universe is composed
of trillions of galaxies, each having 100's of billions
of stars. Our Milky Way galaxy, which contains a 100
billion stars, is 100,000 light years across. Therefore,
the diameter of our galaxy is 588,000,000,000,000,000
miles.
The sheer size of our universe is incomprehensible,
yet God merely spoke it into existence.
Each star is a vast nuclear generator. During each second,
on our Sun, 661 million tons of hydrogen fuse into 657
million tons of helium releasing 4 million tons of matter
as electromagnetic radiation1. This is simply the energy
released from an average star, and our universe contains
a 100 trillion billion stars.
Our Hubble telescope has recently peered at Galaxies
that are 13 billion light years away. The light is so
faint that it is equivalent to trying to see a firefly
on the moon from the earth. Hubble had to take repeated
snapshots, over several months, in order to make the
distant galaxies visible. These most distant galaxies
are still not at the edge of our known universe. The
sheer enormity of our universe makes it impossible for
us to ever explore or to understand but a miniscule
fraction of it. God has created this enormous universe
as a constant reminder of his incomprehensible infinite
power.
In addition, God's power created all living creatures
(an estimated 10 to 30 million species on earth). The
total human population on the earth is currently 6.4
billion. The total number of animals on the earth approaches
100's of billions. There are approximately 750,000 different
species of insects. The total number of bacteria on
the earth is 5 million trillion trillion (more than
the stars in the universe). And the scripture says,
"In his hand is the life of every creature and
the breath of all mankind." (Job 12:10). In his
incomprehensible power, God maintains the life of every
living creature simultaneously. That is, he maintains
the life of multiple trillions of creatures every moment.
If he is able to sustain all life on earth and be aware
of the death of a single sparrow, then he is certainly
able to help us with any problem that we could ever
encounter.
Ultimately, his greatest display of power was in raising
His Son from the dead. God has proven he has the power
to create life from nothing as is evidenced by our universe.
But in the resurrection he demonstrated that he has
the power to bring life even to what was dead. Jesus
had been taken down from the cross on Friday (Mark 15:42,43).
He was placed in a tomb for approximately thirty-six
hours (Mark 16:1,2). Rigor mortis, the condition where
muscles freeze after death, takes a maximum of about
twelve hours to set in. Jesus, therefore, was completely
stiff and cold by the end of the Sabbath day (I apologize
for these gruesome details). Yet God was able to resurrect
him from the dead on Sunday morning. We often can feel
that we have experienced spiritual rigor mortis, where
we have become cold and stiff in our hearts, spirits,
and in our dreams. There is no spiritual condition that
we can find ourselves in where God cannot resurrect
us to greater spiritual heights. He proved this in the
resurrection of his son (Ephesians 1:19,20)
Since God possesses this infinite power, he never has
obstacles or difficulties that are too great to solve.
He also never has plans or schemes that he cannot fulfill.
As the scripture says, "Nothing is impossible with
God." (Luke 1:37). And, "I am the LORD, the
God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?"
(Jeremiah 32:27). He is fully capable of working any
miracle and thus he is fully capable of helping us with
any personal challenge that we may ever face. Every
promise that God has made will be fulfilled by His incomprehensible
power.
He not only has the power to deliver us from our present
problems, he also has the power to accomplish unbelievable
deeds in our future. He can easily open doors, change
hearts, work amazing miracles, change our lives, open
our eyes, help us to pray, stop Satan's schemes, protect
us from any evil, deliver us from any trap, comfort
us in our heartache, empower us to do great works, and
provide for our every need. If we begin to comprehend
this infinite power, we will consistently believe that
we can overcome anything. We would say along with Paul,
"I can do everything through him who gives me strength."
(Philippians 4:13). We would never despair or be discouraged
in our Christian walk because we would be confident
in God's power to fix our problems. No difficulty or
obstacle would seem too great for us. That is why Paul
writes, "I pray also that the eyes of your heart
may be enlightened in order that you may know …
his incomparably great power for us who believe."
(Ephesians 1:18,19). Paul understood that if the Ephesian
Christians realized the power of God, it would revolutionize
their lives.
How many of our days are spent in frustration because
we do not understand or grasp the power of God. How
many persistent ills plague the church because we are
ignorant of God's incomparable power? We are often ignorant
because we choose to focus more on our problems than
on believing in his power. We can be ignorant when we
rely upon ourselves rather than trust that God can and
will work.
If we fail to understand and to embrace the power of
God, then we are missing a major attribute of God and
we are missing a major dimension in our Christian walk.
Those who fail to grasp the power of God will be stuck
in a version of Christianity that is legalistic, self-reliant,
rigid, cold, self-pitying, frustrating, and powerless.
It might be possible to go to heaven not realizing the
power of God but what a miserable trip we will have
along the way.
God has not made it difficult to see or to experience
his power. He manifests his enormous power every day
(Romans 1:20). Unfortunately, we can make it difficult
to experience his power when we have pride in human
effort. If we remove God's power from our belief system,
then we will only be left with our intellectual exercises
and our human efforts. Without God's power, we can become
convinced that every activity demands human effort,
that every success is proportional to our sweat, and
that more determination will solve any and every problem.
We can lose our inspiration and ultimately our hope.
We can reduce Christianity to a set of activities and
formulas and no longer expect great things to happen
except what our personal power will allow. We can simply
become empty shells that mimic discipleship. In the
end, we will have no joy, no spark, no godly fire, and
no significant future impact.
The Sadducees were a sect of Jewish leaders who are
alluded to in Matthew 22 quoted above. Many of them
held the highest offices amongst the Jews including
the high priesthood. They heavily relied on the Old
Testament law, they did not believe in angels or spirits,
nor did they believe in a resurrection. They were the
hard-liners who cut the joy and spontaneity out of religion.
They searched the scriptures diligently but still missed
one of God's greatest attributes - His power. They decided
to test Jesus with a legalistic question about marriage
to prove there was no resurrection and to presumably
validate their entrenched views. Hence Jesus said, "You
are in error because you do not know…the power
of God". To the Sadducees, power was vested in
human intellect and in human effort. To Jesus, power
was vested in God. We all have known Christians like
this who are obsessed with the literal interpretation
of scripture but who are not experiencing real power
in their lives. On the surface, they appear to be dedicated
Christians with great Bible knowledge, but there is
no fruit or joy. They have a form of Godliness but deny
it's power (II Timothy 3:5).
Nothing that we are called to do, or to be, is possible
by human effort. Anything we accomplish by human effort
actually works contrary to God's purposes. Every aspect
of our Christian life demands that we rely completely
upon God's power. We need God's power to believe (Ephesians
2:8), to love (II Timothy 1:7), to act (II Thessalonians
1:11), to repent (II Timothy 2:25), to be pure (Romans
8:13), to understand (Ephesians 3:18), to bear fruit
(Galatians 5:22), and to pray (Romans 8:26).
Knowing God's infinite power, you would think that Christians
would be lined up hoping to tap into this power. Unfortunately,
His power comes at a price. That price is our humility.
Often we would rather remain weak in our pride than
to become strong in our humility. When we open our eyes
and grow to understand and appreciate the power of God,
then our first impulse will be to rely upon him instead
of relying upon ourselves.
During the time of the depression, a man by the name
of Ira Yates owned a sheep ranch in Texas. Mr. Yates
could not make enough money from shepherding to pay
the mortgage on his property and was in danger of losing
it all. He had little money or clothes or food and had
to rely on government subsidies to barely eke out an
existence. A seismic crew from an oil company came to
his property requesting to drill for oil and Ira signed
a lease. The first well drilled began producing 80,000
barrels of oil per day. In modern currency, that translates
to $2.5 million per day. Many more wells were dug, with
some producing twice as much as the first well. His
oil fields continued producing 100's of thousands of
barrels a day for more than 30 years. The kicker is
that Ira was a potential multi-millionaire living in
near total poverty because he was ignorant of the wealth
which lay beneath his own feet.
We too can live in spiritual poverty and weakness because
we are ignorant of the infinite power that God wants
to demonstrate in our lives. When we spend time meditating
on, praying over, and appreciating God's power, it will
transform our hearts and open up our eyes to see the
greatest future that the Church will ever experience.
"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
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