The power of God

God’s power shows its­elf in mira­cles that we can per­cei­ve with our natu­ral eyes. But mira­cles are not the dai­ly por­ti­on of God’s power that we need most. If we want to expe­ri­ence God’s power per­ma­nent­ly, deep­ly and exis­ten­ti­al­ly, so that our fee­lings, thoughts and actions are grip­ped by it, then we must learn to see with the inner eyes, with the eyes of the heart.

Power means free­dom of action. The­re are tho­se in power, tho­se who exer­cise power, tho­se who play power games and tho­se who wield power. Power does not have a good repu­ta­ti­on. That’s why there’s the say­ing: Power for no one. We like to say: «Power cor­rupts cha­rac­ter.«Abra­ham Lin­coln was con­vin­ced of the oppo­si­te: «If you want to know the cha­rac­ter of a per­son, give him power.» Accor­ding to Lin­coln, human cha­rac­ter cor­rupts power. Power mere­ly reve­als cha­rac­ter. That is why human power is such a pro­ble­ma­tic thing. It is our gre­at good for­tu­ne that God, in the best sen­se of the word, is inhu­man with power. Paul had a lon­ging desi­re for the Chris­ti­ans in Ephe­sus to know God and His power. That is why he utters the pas­sio­na­te pray­er writ­ten down in Ephe­si­ans 1:17–23.

Why do we so easily misjudge the power of God?

«May he open your eyes of heart to rea­li­se what hope God gave you when he cal­led you, what a rich and won­derful inhe­ri­tance he has in store for tho­se who belong to his holy peo­p­le, and with what an over­whel­mingly gre­at power he is at work among us, the belie­vers.»(Ephe­si­ans 1:18f NGÜ). Paul prays for open eyes of the heart for the hope that God has given them. With this he looks into the past, to the begin­ning of their faith. Like­wi­se, he looks into the future, to the inhe­ri­tance that is rea­dy for them. And then to the over­whel­mingly gre­at power and strength that is now at work in the pre­sent in the church of Ephesus.

If a tank were to dri­ve by on the See­tal­stras­se right now, we would noti­ce it imme­dia­te­ly. A tank is not­hing com­pared to God’s power. Why does Paul have to pray for peo­p­le to reco­g­ni­se such an incon­ceiv­a­b­ly gre­at power? Why is it so easy to misjudge?

We encoun­ter the same pro­blem at the very begin­ning of God’s gre­at histo­ry with man­kind; name­ly with Abra­ham and Sarah, the pro­ge­ni­tors of faith.. The lives of the two are mark­ed by a ten­si­on: on the one hand, God’s pro­mi­se and, on the other, natu­ral cir­cum­s­tances. God pro­mi­sed Abra­ham in a star­ry hour to make him a gre­at nati­on and Sarah the mother of many nati­ons. The exter­nal cir­cum­s­tances point in a com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent direc­tion. In addi­ti­on to her infer­ti­li­ty, Sara’s bio­lo­gi­cal clock has long sin­ce run out. Abraham’s situa­ti­on is not much bet­ter. Nevert­hel­ess, God pro­mi­ses Abra­ham, now 99 years old, the same thing again. Short­ly after­wards, God visits Abra­ham in the form of three men. They say: «We’ll be back in a year and Sara will have a son..» Sara, who was bak­ing a cake in the kit­chen tent, heard this sen­tence through the tent wall. She can’t help hers­elf and starts laug­hing. She knew what was going on: her amend­ment was years ago. And any­way, not­hing was going on bet­ween them any­mo­re. «Then said the LORD unto Abra­ham, Why laug­hed Sarah, say­ing, Should I inde­ed yet bear, now that I am old? Is any­thing impos­si­ble for the LORD? At this time I will come again unto thee for the year: then shall Sarah have a son. And Sarah denied it, say­ing: I laug­hed not: for she was afraid. And he said, It is not so; thou hast laug­hed.» (Gene­sis 18:13–15 LUT). Sarah, a God-fea­ring woman, would have con­fes­sed in every ser­vice: God is all-powerful. But deep in her heart, God was small. As she laughs, what is deep insi­de her comes out intui­tively. She attri­bu­tes more power to natu­ral cir­cum­s­tances than to God. Her com­mon sen­se has the upper hand in her heart. I can under­stand Sara so well. We too are con­fron­ted with natu­ral cir­cum­s­tances from mor­ning till night. The­se have for­med in us a com­mon sen­se on which we rely. But is that all?

The cru­cial ques­ti­on in the lives of Sarah and Abra­ham, and in ours, is: Can God do what he pro­mi­ses? Can he make the impos­si­ble pos­si­ble? Is he abo­ve natu­ral cir­cum­s­tances? Is he all-powerful? The sto­ry of Sara tea­ches us that natu­ral cir­cum­s­tances are only half the truth. We need an inner eye to see the who­le rea­li­ty. This is exact­ly what Paul prays pas­sio­na­te­ly for. The inner eye is so easi­ly over­ridden by the outer eyes and the mind. Only the inner eye sees God in His power and in His limit­less possibilities.

Do you also long for revi­val? Revi­val is when we no lon­ger mis­judge God’s power but reco­g­ni­se it and when this reco­gni­ti­on of God’s power deter­mi­nes our actions, thoughts and feelings.

How does God’s power work in us?

In the con­text of ski racing the­re is the say­ing: The wea­ther is the boss. We know that God is the boss and has power over natu­ral cir­cum­s­tances. The­re is a lot of evi­dence for that. But even more important for us is to know that God is also boss over super­na­tu­ral things. Three of the­se occur in the text:

• DeathWhe­ther it is a human being or a sequoia; ever­y­thing that lives dies once. Death has enorm­ous power. It is so powerful that the Mexi­cans hold a fes­ti­val las­ting seve­ral days for the san­ta muer­ta (holy death). A ske­le­ton lies in a coff­in, which the peo­p­le wor­ship. They expect hope and sal­va­ti­on from death. For the­se peo­p­le, death is the most powerful thing. We in the West tend to igno­re death. Alt­hough it hap­pens to ever­yo­ne, it is con­side­red an acci­dent that can per­haps be avo­ided for once. «I pray that you may rea­li­se how over­whel­mingly gre­at is his power with which he works in us who belie­ve in him. It is the same migh­ty power that rai­sed Christ from the dead and gave him the place of honour at God’s right hand in hea­ven.»(Ephe­si­ans 1:19f NLB). Paul says: The same power that defea­ted migh­ty death is at work in you. Befo­re you were living dead, sepa­ra­ted from God. Now you are spi­ri­tual­ly ali­ve, united with God. When your body decays in the coff­in, you are more ali­ve than ever. You are united with Him for all eter­ni­ty and you will reign with Him! We only know this truth with the eyes of the heart!
• The super­na­tu­ral powers: «Now he is set up as ruler over every world­ly govern­ment, power, aut­ho­ri­ty and domi­ni­on, and over ever­y­thing else, in this world as well as in the world to come. God has pla­ced ever­y­thing under the rule of Christ and has appoin­ted Christ as Lord over the church» (Ephe­si­ans 1:21f NLB). For the majo­ri­ty of the earth’s popu­la­ti­on it is com­ple­te­ly clear that the­re are super­na­tu­ral powers such as angels and demons. The­se peo­p­le are afraid of the demons and try to appease them. It was also clear to Jesus that the­se sphe­res exist. It is not a good power. They want to des­troy peo­p­le. They hate Jesus and his church, they hate our mar­ria­ges and fami­lies and ever­y­thing that is sacred to us. The ground­brea­king news is, all the­se powers are sub­dued. Satan has lost his power. This is some­thing we do not feel and do not see with our eyes. But it has hap­pen­ed and we are protected!
• The inner emp­tin­essHer­bert Grö­ne­mey­er wro­te the fol­lo­wing lyrics in his song unbe­wohnt: I get up, roam around the house | Go to the fri­dge, open it | It’s cold, it’s emp­ty | Move in the hope­l­ess room | Talk to mys­elf, hard­ly hear mys­elf | Am my radio, turn me off. […] The not­hing­ness is in every detail | In me all rooms are free | And me too. […] It drips into the heart | The head unfur­nis­hed and hol­low | Ooh, no flowers in the win­dow, | The TV wit­hout pic­tu­re and sound. | Wit­hout pic­tu­re and sound. | I feel unin­ha­bi­ted. Fee­ling unin­ha­bi­ted and emp­ty insi­de is a basic human expe­ri­ence. When it gets quiet and one arri­ves at ones­elf, after the acti­vi­ty is over and the fri­ends have left, we feel that some­thing is miss­ing. I am unin­ha­bi­ted, I am emp­ty. With his bound­less power he over­co­mes our emp­tin­ess: «But the church is his body, and it is fil­led with Christ, who fills ever­y­thing com­ple­te­ly with his pre­sence.»(Ephe­si­ans 1:23 NLB). This is how God acts on peo­p­le who feel emp­ty. He makes a church out of indi­vi­du­als who are on the road some­whe­re. He calls it his body. He gives hims­elf as head to this body and dwells in it.

How can we experience the power of God?

God could have put a baby in Sara’s bel­ly in a split second. No pro­blem! That’s what we call a mira­cle. But mira­cles are not the dai­ly por­ti­on of God’s power that we need most urgen­tly. Mira­cles are for our natu­ral eye and God does a mira­cle every now and then. We are over­whel­med by this and con­vin­ced: this is God’s power. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, this con­vic­tion often does not last long. When Jesus was on this earth, He per­for­med mira­cles upon mira­cles, but in the end no one had been with Him.

God has cho­sen not to per­form mira­cles con­sis­t­ent­ly becau­se He knows that we need to expe­ri­ence His power on a much deeper level than our eyes allow. If we want to expe­ri­ence God’s power per­ma­nent­ly, deep­ly and exis­ten­ti­al­ly, so that our fee­lings, thoughts and actions are taken over by it, then we must learn to see with the inner eyes, with the eyes of the heart..

When child­ren need to train one eye, the other is taped shut. Our inner eye is also trai­ned when the natu­ral eyes see not­hing. The Bible calls this Faith. See not­hing and yet belie­ve. Trust in invi­si­ble facts. The sen­so­ry organ for faith is the heart.

At the end of his life, Jesus says: «Let not your heart be trou­bled! Belie­ve in God and belie­ve in me!»(John 14:1 LUT). The mes­sa­ge to his fri­ends was: What your eyes see in the days to come does not cor­re­spond to the facts. Do not be frigh­ten­ed, look with your heart. Belie­ve in God and in me. Com­mon sen­se will whisper to Jesus» fri­ends: «This is defeat! Jesus is han­ging naked on the cross. He will brea­the his last. It is the end!» The eyes of the heart see this and, in addi­ti­on, the hid­den rea­li­ty. Name­ly, that on the cross Jesus will over­co­me death, the devil and sin once and for all. Jesus rises from the dead and car­ri­es away the vic­to­ry. You can only see this tri­umph with your inner eyes.

How can we expe­ri­ence God’s power in tho­se situa­tions whe­re we do not expe­ri­ence mira­cles? By tur­ning our inner eye again and again to this truth: Christ died for us and he won for us. In doing so, He has com­ple­te­ly over­co­me our natu­ral and super­na­tu­ral cir­cum­s­tances: Death, guilt, addic­tion, loneli­ne­ss, God’s remo­ten­ess and every remai­ning ble­mish on our character.

Let not your heart be trou­bled! Belie­ve in God and belie­ve in me! This call is also for you! Jump over the shadow of your limi­t­ed com­mon sen­se to expe­ri­ence the Almigh­ty God.

Possible questions for the small groups

Read the Bible text: Ephe­si­ans 1:17–23

1. Jesus says that all power in hea­ven and on earth has been given to Him. How can this power be recognised?
2. What was the ten­si­on that Sarah and Abra­ham had to deal with? Whe­re do you see a simi­lar ten­si­on in your life?
3. Why does­n’t God do more mira­cles in the natu­ral realm?
4. How can we train the eyes of the heart to see God’s power better?
5.