The Power of God

I’ve struggled for some time in my Christian walk.  Mostly over the power God.  I remember walking through Haiti on my first trip wondering why, as a supposedly saved person with the Holy Spirit inside of him, couldn’t walk over and heal them.  The land was as close to the times of the Disciples as I think I’ll ever see.  It has bothered me ever since. 

What am I lacking?  It has to be faith, right?  I can testify to God’s answering some of my prayers, but sometimes, it just feels like a crap shoot.  Will He answer this one or that one?  Why am I so off in my prayers if He only answers a few?  If I was closer to Him then I’d have to believe my prayers would be exactly what He would pray and it would be done, or He would reveal His will and I’d know why it wasn’t being done.  I would do that for my own children and my love for them is imperfect.  So, what is the deal?

To top it off, I read this text in 2 Timothy and it scared me as to what kind of person I might really be.  But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.  People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,  treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people. – 2 Timothy 3:1-5

Am I one of those?  Do I have a form of godliness but deny its power?  Very scary stuff if such a person is also all the things described above it.  My heart has been very broken because it knows that it is indeed such a person, except for the intentional intervention of God, my Father, the only father who has ever loved me.

So, where is His power then?

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. – Romans 1:16

The power of God is in the gospel.  What is the gospel?

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. – John 3:16

So, the power of God is God Himself, who is love, for “the world”.  Well, of course the power of God is God Himself.  I think it is obvious that only the Creator of all that is, is the power.  But the application of His power is towards people.  This is very important.  We can never live in His power unless we are intentionally and purposefully loving people.  All of them. 

Now I know why I haven’t lived in His power.  I love some of them.  I know I don’t love all of them.  For every person I know or meet, I have to ask myself a few questions.  “Do I love them?”  If not really, then I need to make a conscious choice to love them.  Next, “Why do I love them?”  Is it for what they can do for me, or what they do for me, or is it simply because God wants them to be loved.  It must be the latter or my heart will never show them true love.  And without that true love, His power cannot be made manifest.  Only true sincere love changes people – and that type of love is of God and is the power of God.

If I ever want to walk the Earth as a true disciple and even remotely have the possibility of the power of God being transmitted through me, it will have to come through God’s intense love being given to others.  Then, miracles will happen and people’s lives will be changed.

Dear Lord, help me to love the people You created with the love that You love them.  I know I am incapable of such a task!  Lord, change my heart so my only concern is loving others the way You love them and not being fearful of how they will hurt me, or use me, or manipulate me.  I pray that Your power will infuse their heart and change their life so they might see You and be healed forever.  Through the Christ I pray, Amen.