Well, my “morning” started just before midnight. I woke up and couldn’t sleep. After a 20-or-so-minute struggle to fall asleep, I finally gave up and got up, made my “pretend coffee” (so I didn’t sabotage any further attempts to sleep with caffeine in my system), and then settled into prayer-journaling about the weirdness and struggle of it all. I got as far as Jesus’ first instruction in our praying, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name”, expanding this into situations and people that came to mind. It didn’t seem like too long before I felt exhausted enough to try sleeping again, and I did.
Round two of my time with God focused on the phrase, “by truthful speech, and the power of God”.[1] The first half I think I have imitated, the second half… not so much! That led me into a double-sided look into what Paul meant. One half was the negative, about how the plumbline of “power” eludes so many churches (including those that claim to have it). The other half is the positive, how the word of God, the Word of God, and the apostles of God, demonstrate God’s power so that our faith is founded on the most powerful foundation in the world.[2]
One of the things Paul said that helps my focus in this is, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”[3] So, being a clay pot is okay! It fits the work of God because the power belongs to him and not to us.
Then Paul clarified, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”[4] This settles where the power is, in “the word of the cross”. It also tells us what success looks like: “those who are perishing” will never “get it”, while those “who are being saved” will experience the gospel as “the power of God”. Anyone who has believed in Jesus Christ in repentance and faith has already experienced “the power of God” in just this way.
And this brings me back to a favorite expression of Paul’s:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."[5]
The gospel is the power of God for salvation. We don’t have the same “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” that the apostles had (although I believe that this is now distributed throughout the body of Christ in various ways and various gifts), but even in this Paul gave the reason as, “so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”[6]
The application of this has two parts. First, in relation to Paul’s testimony, we are assured that he was a genuine apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ and what he wrote us of the gospel can be trusted with all our hearts.
Second, in relation to how to imitate Paul’s example as members of the body of Christ, it means I must join God’s work of sharing the good news of great joy as often as God gives opportunity, trusting that the power is in the gospel itself, not in anything my clay jar contributes. And it means I must focus on my spiritual gifts instead of natural talents or abilities because it is the gifting each believer receives from God that gives us our distinct place in the body of Christ to demonstrate that God’s power is at work where natural talents just don’t cut it.
So, I have heard God speaking through his word, I can see
what he is doing in me and what to watch for around me, and I submit to joining
him in this work with my best understanding of what this means, and with a
faith that welcomes the surprises that will surely come.
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
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