The Power of God

Prayer on Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."


What is the Power of God? Romans 1:16 "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

Therefore the power of God is the gospel, the good news (Amplified) and the word of God.


So how is it that the words of the Bible are the power of God? Sometimes I read the Bible and I do not feel like I am connecting with God's Power? I feel contrary to Psalm 119:130 "The entrance and unfolding of Your words give light". If I truly read God's words, they should penetrate through my heart. I have to understand His words for them to impact my life. If I read the Bible regularly but gain nothing from it I am doing something wrong. I have to assess my study methods and make some changes. This is because from 1 Timothy 3:16 "All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness..." This means that every book in the Bible, every chapter, every verse, every sentence and even every word is useful. Additionally 2 Peter 1:20-21 "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."

So now that we know what the power of God is, the next question is how do we obtain it? Acts 1:8 "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives us God's power! Additionally, Luke 4:14 illustrates this point "Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit and news about him spread through the whole countryside.

At this point you may be saying that ok I have the Power of God within me or you may be saying I now understand what the power of God is and how I get it but what next? Well here is what the Bible says you must do if you have the power of God residing in you: Luke 4:18-19 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the
prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

-I think the problem with most of us is that we take God's word too literal, instead we need to pray everytime we read His word and ask for wisdom and understanding. For illustrative purposes I will discuss the first part of the verse above. The Spirit of the Lord is on me ...to preach good news to the poor. Poor means lacking resources, most of the time when we hear the word poor we immediately think of people lacking financial resources. However, in this instance poor means spiritually poor. So instead of us going out there to try and preach to the Homeless solely, it means that we should preach to our spouses, best friends, siblings, co-workers etc. We should preach to them just like someone preached to us to make us believers.

Now in terms of preaching, we also have to ask God for discernment, because preaching does not always mean that we should tote our bibles and throw scripture after scripture in peoples faces. Sometimes it just means that we should be the shoulder for our friends to cry on and our presence will make all the difference and let them know that there is something different about us. Our life styles and the way we conduct ourselves should reflect God's light. The way we approah various situations in our lives should be attractive to others and make them want to find out about the God we serve.

In conclusion, my prayer is that each and every day of our lives we will walk in the power of God by reading and understanding His word and that we will go out and preach His word to the Spiritually poor. Amen.