Topic: The Matchless Power of God
Key Verse: “Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son.” (Genesis 18:14 NIV).
Human beings generally speaking love power, and some can go to the extreme to secure power. When their efforts fail, they resort to actions that are damaging, destructive and dangerous. Most people will remember the actions of one of such persons, who was going to bring down the government of his country because his desire to remain in power failed. Despots and authoritarian regimes feature such negative quest and expression of power.
But the desire for power, be it political, financial, social, or positional, should not surprise anyone, because when God created human beings, He gave them the privilege of having dominion over all other creatures. This is power par excellence, and beyond whatever human beings have today or seek to possess! The challenge is that the kind of power human beings struggle for has been mostly destructive, because they seek it from the Satan who is described as having a main purpose to kill, steal, and destroy. Due to the Fall in the Garden of Eden, everyone who have come into this world, have some amount of this type of destructive power, until they encounter Jesus Christ, and submit to Him for transformation. As a Trainer in Management and Clinical Social Work, my clients are often exposed to three kinds of power namely, “Power Within; Power Over; and Power With.” The first two kinds are the type of power displayed by most human beings. Each human being has some ‘Power Within’, given by God. But since the devil has corrupted human beings, the display of this power is in the form of ‘Power Over’, which is why it is mostly oppressive and destructive. But the redeemed person can display ‘Power With’, which is the harmonization of positive power/ability in each person in a close relationship, such as family, marriage, and work groups, to useful purposes. It is about team spirit and synergy. This can be said to be the reason God gave human beings power to have dominion over all other creatures, not over one another. Human beings displayed this ‘Power With’ in the story of the Tower of Babel, where they started out in one accord to build a tower that will get up to heaven, had God not disrupted them, because He could see through their evil intensions.
Creation Story clearly reveals that the Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, worked in harmony to create the universe including human beings. Our text tells us that God did the impossible when He made Abraham and Sarah to bring forth the child of promise, Isaac, through whom He established His special people, the Jews, in their old age. Though human beings, created in God’s Image and likeness, lost their godly power through the Fall in the Garden of Eden, Jesus Christ, God the Son, has restored mankind back to God. Everyone who believes and accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour is positioned to have God display His Matchless Power in such a life. We are saved, sanctified, and preserved for eternity through the greatness of God’s power, which was the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. So, as you start this New Year, remember that as a believer you can begin to live like you were created to be from the beginning. The power of God at work in you is “in consequence of the action of His power that is at work within us, is able to carry out His purpose and do superabundantly, far over and above all that we dare ask or think, infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes or dreams.” (Ephesians 3:20 AMPC).
Bible References: Genenis1:26-27; 28-30; 2:7-8, 15-17;1-2; John 10:10a; Genesis 3:1-8; 6:5; 11:3-9;18:14; 15:3-6,13-18; 17:1-7; 18:10-14; 21:1-5; John 1:10-13; Gal.1:4-5; Heb.2:15-18; Ephesians 1:19-23; 3:20; 1Thessalonians 5:23-24.
