A different kind of power…

I’ve posted a lot in the last year or two on the revelations and aspects of God’s power that He’s shown me. Wednesday night, however, He pointed out something sort of new.

If you’re like me, then you’ve got loved ones who do not know Jesus. Maybe they don’t want to have anything to do with Him. Or maybe they know of Him, but it doesn’t seem that they know Him and the hope of His calling and the glorious life that is possible when you surrender your life to Him.

I think of these that I love, and I pray for them…but so often I feel that anything I could try to say would be worthless, or would alienate them, or would backfire and drag them farther away from the God I love and serve…and so I keep silent and hope that my life will be a living testimony.

That’s Biblical, and it’s good. Like the saying goes, “Preach always, and when necessary, use words.” I realized years ago that the single most powerful thing I can do to reach my loved ones and the world around me is to simply press in to know God more and more. Because any successful ministry to any of them would be by His direction and His power and His ways…and the more connected I get with Him, the more He will be able to use me.

But if this is Truth…if this is how God wants to reach the lost…than sooner or later, those words will be necessary, won’t they?

What words? I’ve always felt like whatever ones I might have would be weak and powerless.

Wednesday night, God sent Mark Barclay with a message for our church, which means a message for me. There were many wonderful truths in that message, but one in particular spoke to me.

He said, “There is a way to reach every unsaved person…and God knows what it is and will give it to you if you ask Him.”

I don’t know why that seemed like such a novel concept to me. The thoughts that went through my mind in response to it, though, were along the lines of, “But what could ever reach _____?”

So you think it’s too difficult for Me?

If this had been a movie, that would have been the point where I had the feet I was standing on swept out from under me, landing me ungracefully on my backside while I stuttered like an idiot.

God picked me up and continued.

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witness.

Suddenly I realized that God’s power…the power that breathes the stars…that effortlessly rips through the veil between our world and the beyond…that bends time and protects me and restores what it took the devil hours to destroy in me…that power is easily capable of piercing through the walls and breaking the chains and destroying the lies that seemed so insurmountable. In fact, those walls are part of the tissue paper world, not the real one.

I think the time for speaking in obedience is drawing near. I’m almost quaking in my boots…except I think that revelation about what is outside the box and my comfort zone was given to me six weeks ago for this reason. God’s timing on everything is perfect.

So I will wait on Him. And by His grace, I will speak the words that He places in my mouth. For He has given me power so that I may be His witness.

For I am the Lord’s bondslave. Maybe it be to me as You have said.