God's Power
2004 : Week 52  |  Printer Friendly Version  

The devotional, “The Prayer Target,” was an example to show how one could begin to pray in a way that focuses on the relationship between the Creator (God) and the created (man). Prayer is such a wonderful necessity and privilege of the Christian life, but today I wanted to take a look at another equally important aspect: serving the Lord with power.

	11 If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
	1 Peter 4:11

As I read this verse from the Bible, there are five words that draw my attention, “the strength that God provides”. As I think of these words, maybe the most important question that I should be asking myself is, “What are my responsibilities to God when I get this power to serve?”

You see, God gives different power to different people, as He sees fit to do so. In the physical realm God does not give the same strengths to everyone to do the same things. God does enjoy the variety in His creation. In the same way, God does not give everyone the same spiritual power to take part in the great commission. If He did, then you would have everyone trying to do the same thing for the Lord, but that’s not what we see. We see different people, fulfilling different roles in ministry, and they are given varying amounts of revelation to share with others. There was only one Moses to lead an entire nation out of Egypt, but there were many other priests and ministers within the group he led. They, like Moses, were all given the power for their ministries by God.

Similarly, whatever our ministry is, the power to fulfill it shouldn’t come from our flesh; the power should come from God. We are to ask the Lord for guidance and power in our ministry. God is always willing to answer an obedient and humble servant, and the Bible tells us to have confidence when we ask Him to intercede on our behalf.

An example that should give us confidence can be seen in the truth that ‘God will never give us a trial that we cannot handle.’ Growing up, whenever a problem came up, I rested on the truth that God’s power would be sufficient when I encountered a trial. He gives us the strength to handle the trial, so there might only be three possible outcomes when a trial arises:

1. We do not use the power that God can provide for us.
2. We use the power that God provides and then take credit and the glory for our victory.
3. We use the power that God provides and praise God through Jesus Christ for giving the strength to us.

The Biblical answer and correct thing to do is to pray for the strength God has made available to us during our trial, and give credit to Him by glorifying Him. He is the one that pulls us through our trials, so He is worthy of the praise in the victory.

This is the same thing we should do when we serve the Lord as ministers. We should ask Him for the power that He has made available to us, since our prayers to the Holy Spirit to serve the Lord will be answered. We should then use His power to be strong ministers for Him so that our ministry is godly, solid and Christ centered. Finally, when the Holy Spirit has provided us with the power to execute the ministry set before us, we should not focus the attention on ourselves. The praise for our work in ministry, as it was when we overcome our trials, should be given to Jesus Christ. If the power for our victory and service in Christ has come from God, why would we think we should or could take the glory? We shouldn’t, it should be directed towards Jesus Christ.

Jesus is worthy of our praise for so many reasons, and making the His power available to us when we serve Him is another reason to praise Him. To whatever degree and extent that you serve the Lord, praise Him and glorify Him for allowing you to do so.

The safest place in the world is right next to Him.



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