TV 1732 | We've Got the Power Conclusion

What's the difference between knowing about somebody and knowing them? Yeah. To know somebody, you're spending time with them, you're communicating, you're walking, and that person is walking with you. Do you believe that Jesus actually wants to walk with us? Why would He want to walk with somebody like me? Look at poor old me. That's why you need Him. That's why I need Him. Oh, how many lies the devil wants to plant in our minds that undermine this simple truth. He literally wants to walk with us and us to Him so we can experience Him. What's the difference, for example, between knowing that God is faithful in a theological sense and going through something that is really deep and difficult and experiencing God's faithfulness? That's what God wants, and that's what Paul wants. This was not, like I said, this was not an event. This was a lifestyle. This is what my life is about. I know there's stuff I don't know. I want to know Him. I want to know Him better, you could put it that way, because He knew the Lord, but He wanted always to know Him better and to gain more. There's more that I don't have, and it comes not from trying. It comes from looking to Him and laying hold of what He's given me. That's where we, every one, fall short. He's given us everything we need for life and godliness. Isn't that what Peter said? Praise God. All right? I want to know Christ, yes, to know the what?

The power of His resurrection. That's the source of everything that I need this morning, that I lack in myself. It comes out of what Jesus came out of that cross, out of the tomb with. He came out with a very life of God that has power, more power than anything in this universe. Praise God. That's what He shares with me, but I don't lay hold of that like I should. I don't really ... I don't believe it sometimes. Anybody with me on that one? We talk like we do, but in the day-to-day living, we don't even, we sort of don't reckon on that. We don't really quite believe it. But Paul understood, hey, I'm not really there yet, but there's ... and I'm still facing things. The Lord is allowing in my life because He's touching areas of need. He loves me enough to show me my need, but in that, He wants me to turn to Him and believe with all of my heart that I can experience something that will help me to put one foot in front of another and not get discouraged, not get my eyes off onto the problem and onto the weakness, but always onto the Savior. And so my knowledge, the real kind of knowledge grows, and I have more of a testimony because I've been there and done that, to know the power of His resurrection. This is, again, it's not the doctrine that we need so much as the power, the actual infusion of power. Like I said, the difference between plugging in a machine or just looking at this beautiful machine that's supposed to do stuff and doesn't have the power to do it. Praise God. This was what drove Paul's life when he got up in the morning. It wasn't, okay, what have I got to do today? Let's see, I've got to make some tents and sell them so I can eat. I've got to, or I'm in prison and I'm having a rough day. I don't feel good.

They just beat me half to death and I'm, poor me, and a thousand and one things he could have focused on, but his heart was, Lord, I am in the center of Your will. I'm looking to You and everything that I'm experiencing this day, You're teaching me. I've been asking You to increase my knowledge and my wisdom and my understanding. This is how it happens. It happens in everyday life. It happens here, but it happens when you walk out the door. It happens this afternoon, this evening. It happens when you get up in the morning. Whatever the circumstances are, this is when God does His teaching. I just pray that God will help me to listen to what I'm saying because I need this, all right, to know the power of His resurrection and the participation in His sufferings. That means I've got to go through stuff that my flesh doesn't want, but when I'm willing to serve Him in spite of what happens, something is happening to make that new man stronger, to grow up, to make choices because that's what it comes down to. What do I do when stuff happens? Do I choose to think about myself? Do I choose to look to Him and say, Lord, I know You're in charge. I know You love me and I'm trusting in You for the strength to handle this. us, and to do it with a thankful heart." Those are words that are easy to say, but every one of us can think of circumstances where we don't do that. We don't quite think that way or act that way. I'm so glad the Lord is patient and He's working with us. He loves us, all right? Becoming like Him in His death, and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead. As I've said many times, I think, attaining to the resurrection doesn't mean someday I'm going to be raised. This means right now what Christ wants for every one of us is to live resurrection life, not human life.

There are things that I need to lay hold of that I have not laid hold of as yet. This is what God is working in me every single day. This is what my life is about. This defines my life when I get up in the morning and everything that I do. If it's about something else, then man, I'm in a bad place. I'm in a weak place. Praise God, all right? This is where He says, not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. I'll tell you, I'm so thankful that when I would never have sought Him or looked to Him, He reached out to me. Man, if He has reached out to you, don't you say, hey, yes, look at me. Oh my. He can reach out into the worst of the worst, the most unlikely you could think of, because that's His heart, is to reach down into the garbage cans of life and pull out treasure. Thank God. Thank God. But He laid hold of me for a purpose. It's not just to say, all right, you're mine. Go on, live your life. There's a purpose. It's to make me the kind of a person that He wants me to be. It's to work through me so that I can actually be a help to somebody else, and it's to be able to stand when the devil attacks me and have some force behind what I do. I just need Him in me in every aspect of my life so that the spiritual man, the real man that's going to live forever, the real person that's going to live forever, grows and gets stronger and learns. We have the power, but do we? We have it in theory, but we need it in practice. I'll tell you, I sense God looking at us and looking at areas of need and saying, I've

got what you need. There's nothing that you lack, nothing that's unavailable to you. I mean, it could be as simple, like I say, as just walking through a day and not realizing we need to stay connected to heaven. We need to eat. We need spiritual food. We need more of Jesus. We need to hear His words, hear His thoughts. We need to talk to Him and listen as He talks to us and learn to have an ear that can hear His voice. I'm not talking about some spooky stuff. I'm just talking about a reality. He's real. I know there's a lot of folks here that know what I'm talking about. There are times when you get quiet and He actually is able to quicken stuff and to breathe it and make it alive to us. But God wants the people who walk with Him. But God wants the people who are, well, what is the atmosphere that you generate? What do people, do people sense Jesus when you're around them? Got quiet. But do you see the challenges that God is working on in our lives? He wants every one of us to be so connected to Him and so trusting, not in our own strength, but always realizing I need to be plugged in. I need real power and I have it. And here's the reality, everything that He has called us to do and be, He has provided the power so that we can. As I say, what sense would it make to say, this is what you got to do, but you can't do it. I know you can't. God has given us this, but He wants us to learn it.

And this is what Paul was doing. I press on to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. So again, we have Paul's own testimony. I'm on a journey here, folks. There are needs in my heart, in my life that God's still working on. And that's okay. You think of a little child and you realize they're just growing this stuff they don't know. How do they learn? A lot of times they learn by making some pretty bad messes. A lot of times they learn and they listen and they struggle, they want to do it their way and they find out that doesn't work, or if they're smart. But how dumb are we sometimes spiritually? We just don't get the lessons that God wants to teach us every single day. And so we walk through our day and some professed believers are just living out natural lives and the aura, the spiritual aroma they give off is not Jesus. God help us. He's willing to help us if we want to be helped. He's given us everything that we need. May God help me to be so, to get rid of this self-absorbed way of thinking and doing where it's all about me and how I'm feeling, what I'm doing. I want Him to just, I want to let go and let God have His way. That's not just some, we think of some spiritual way of life where we're just sitting there folding our hands all the time. No, we do the natural things of life. Jesus was a carpenter for heaven's sake. But there's still a heart where we're walking through life with Him and not just ourselves going off and doing whatever we think we're supposed to do. Every part of our life is designed.

It's a pathway that God has laid out. Aren't we supposed to walk the pathway or run the race that is, what, marked out for us? If you've been called into His kingdom, He has actually set out a path. That path leads to an awesome place. But in the process, He wants me to be a certain kind of a person. He wants me to affect you in a certain kind of way that's good. He wants the people that are in my life to be blessed and strengthened because they're around me, not because I'm so wonderful, but because He is. Because I'm letting go and it's not about me anymore. Praise God. And you know, He might even be able to use me someday. Imagine that. Somebody like me. But all the lies that Satan will tell us, all the stuff that I've done, how could God ever love somebody like me? How could I, you know, all the stuff that's happened to me in my life and the way people treat me and the way they think about me and all of my failures, oh, this is just impossible. I've just got to accept it. This is who I am. Oh, God, get us out of that kind of thinking and realize. When He called us out of His kingdom, He gave us a brand new heart and a new life. Satan will put every roadblock in your way and mine so that we can say, well, we've got the power, but God help me. I wrestle with this. I wrestle with it. I'm confessing my own need. Just like Paul did. Paul said, I haven't arrived, but I'm so thankful. He said the one thing, forgetting what's behind.

What is there that you're carrying in your life and your heart that's in your past that is somehow weighing you down and making you think, oh, I can't ever be that. God has given us through Christ the ability to put that, to lay that at the cross and walk away from it as if it never happened. We may learn from it, but in terms of it weighing us down and making us think, I can't ever be what I'm supposed to be because God has set us free through Christ. Thank God. Don't you listen to anything that would rise up in your mind and say, this is just fantasy. God's power is just not for me. God's power is for everyone that he calls into his kingdom. It's not just the instruction as to what to do. It's the power to do it. Thank God. All right? So Paul understood and realized I'm on a journey. This is what my life is when I get up. I'm forgetting. This is the one thing I do. Forgetting what is behind and reaching, straining towards what is ahead. He recognizes I've got opposition. My nature is going to continually fight me. Caesar's not going to be happy either. And all the, and the Sanhedrin, if I stand before them, they're not going to be happy either. In fact, there are going to be people that will beat me and stone me. But nothing's going to stop me because I see that this is the one thing in all the universe that's worth it. This life is going to be over. Life is worthless. I gave that up when I came to Jesus. I laid that down just as real, just as really and truly as Jesus did.

Isn't that what baptism is about, by the way? Where by faith, we literally are laying down our earthly life and giving it up so that it now belongs to him. And then we take up a brand new life and learn to begin to live that one out. I'll tell you, I don't care what your past is. I don't care what your natural weaknesses are. I don't care what people think of you. I don't care about any of the earthly things that hold us back and make prisoners out of us. We just need Jesus, don't we? Praise God. And he is real and he is faithful. All right. I press on to take hold of that and so forth. Reaching for that, press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. How many times have we referred to what Paul expressed in 2 Corinthians chapter 12? I won't even turn over there because you know the scripture. Where God allowed Paul to experience some amazing things, caught up to heaven, seeing great visions. Now, how would you feel if you experienced that? I must be special. That's why God did that. Look at me. Well, God understands human nature better than we do. It would be good if we just listened and humbled ourselves and always said, Lord, I need you. Of course, you don't come and just, OK, I got to act real, I got to act real, real humble. Humility can be an act, too. God wants us to have a confidence in God.

God wants us to have a confidence, but it needs to be the right kind of confidence where we recognize what we are, but we also recognize he's given me the strength that I need, so I have it. And I'm not even going to waste the time thinking about what can I do this or can I not? I'm going to do what God shows me to do, what he gives me to do. All right. So Paul was in a place where a demon was bothering him, and he's praying, say, God, get rid of this thing. It's in the way. I can't serve you effectively as long as this is happening. Until God explained it. And he realized, Paul, I don't need your strength. I don't need your strength. I don't need how smart you are. I don't need your your stature in the world. I don't need any of that. I just want a willing vessel because my strength. My power is made perfect or complete. How? Through your weakness. Ah, Paul said. That makes more sense. Now I get it. You need me to have a conscious, a self-consciousness that I am weak. Now, that's not to think, oh, poor me. It's not that kind of a thing, but it's a it's where I recognize I am weak, and if I feel weak, that's OK, because God wants me to immediately look to him and reckon. You know what the word reckon means? When you write a check on your checking account, for those of you who have them, what are you doing?

You're reckoning on that money being there in the bank, fulfilling, you know, paying whoever you're trying to pay. You're counting on that. It's it's real and you're acting as if it's true. You're taking action based upon the upon what you understand. God wants the same thing from his people. He wants us to come to him, and if he tells you to do something, he wants you to say, I can do that. By the way, if you go to Philippians chapter four, it kind of says that, doesn't it? Paul describes a couple of things, different circumstances that he found himself in. What did he say that he was able to do and how? I can do all things through him or through Christ who strengthens me. That's how he saw life. If God tells me to do something, I can do it. And I don't need to waste my time with my sense of inability or unworthiness. Who is it that qualified me for this? You go back to Colossians. He qualified me. I couldn't possibly qualify myself. There's no way I could qualify myself. He qualified me. I have every right. To the very same things that Paul had, Paul had a right to. You ever thought about that? We think, oh, that's Paul. He's in a different category from me. Poor old me. I'm just weak. You have the same right. To the things that God has given us.

that Paul had. That's what he was trying to convey to the believers. And just as he said, I can do all things, whatever he puts in front of me, I can do it because there's strength that I have access to. And I reckon on that. I ask for it. I look to him for it. And he supplies it. And so I just do. I don't waste my time. Can I do this? Oh, I feel this. I don't know. All the little things that we go through that just cause us basically to be unbelievers about it. Now I know that all of you have just reached a spiritual pinnacle where none of these things are issues. So I'm asking you to pray for me because I haven't got there yet. But the Lord's working, isn't he? Isn't he awesome to do the things that he's done for us? Isn't he awesome to give us everything we need to be his children, grow up and live with him in a kingdom forever? Right now there's going to be challenges. Life is going to be full of difficulties. He's going to send them to you because he wants you to grow because of them. But in every case, what he's looking for is for me to turn and reckon on power to handle it. Power to put one foot in front of another and keep on moving, never to give up. How do I do that? His power.

Do we really have the power? Or is that just some nice sentiment we like to sing? I want that to be more than a sentiment. I want that to be a living conviction, a hope. And the word hope in the Bible is not just I hope so. This is an expectation based upon fact, based upon the promise of God. I'll tell you, we have a God who has given us all the power that we need to live the life to which he's called us. We've got the power. And I just pray that God will help me and you, every one of us, to lay hold of that as we need it day by day. Remember, this is a day by day thing where I need it all day, every day. Just like I need food and all the other things that sustain this natural life, I need this too. And I need to live with that consciousness, expectation to where I realize, hey, I'm struggling here. I need you, Lord. I need to reach out to you right now and I thank you for your faithfulness and your promise. I'll tell you, God is so good to us. I mean, there isn't a thing we've said this morning that we haven't said over and over again. But anybody here need this? Yeah, we all do. This is the beans and potatoes and hamburger or whatever that we need for life, for spiritual life, just like we need the natural stuff. We need this and God's given it to us and his heart is that we lay hold of what he's given us because that's how we grow. That's how we become the kind of people he wants. That's how he's able to work through us so we can help each other.

It's how he works through us so we can be a light in the world. It's how he works in us so that we can stand up and not just wave a sword at the devil and hope, but we can actually, we got some power behind that because there's a conviction that can say the word of God and the devil has to recognize. There's power that's gone out through our lips to that devil. We have everything we need. Let's lay hold of it and believe him. Praise God. This has been the Midnight Cry broadcast. If you would like a DVD or CD of today's message in its entirety, please request it by program number. While it is not required, a donation of $10 for DVDs and $5 for CDs is suggested to help with expenses. Also, for those who request it, we will send you our quarterly publication, the Midnight Cry Messenger, free and postage paid. Send your requests to Midnight Cry Ministries, Post Office Box 685, Southern Pines, NC 28388. We invite you to join us again next week at the same time, and may God richly bless you until then.