We've Got the Power

Praise the Lord. It's hard to hear that song being sung without thinking about the young lady to whom that song was given, because she was basically ready to commit suicide, had already planned it. In the midst of that, the Lord got a hold of her life, and I believe she was one of the ones that I've heard say this and testify to this, where the Lord actually said, if you're going to throw away your life, how about giving it to me? And she did. And just the look on her face as she was singing this song, I'll tell you, it's real when the Lord's done something for you like that, and you realize how anybody, there's a hope for God to reach down and just fill you with His love and accept you, because the job of saving you is His. We have our part to cooperate, to lay hold of what He's given to us, but the job is His, and it's salvation, and we need it. Every single one. I don't care if you've lived what people call a good life and all of that. We're sinners. We have the same need exactly, but we have the same Savior. Praise God. Well, the thoughts I've had coming into this weekend are not new, but guess what? How many of you know that we don't just need new, exciting insights and revelation about all this doctrine and that one? We need the stuff that, like when we eat, we eat the same things a lot of times, don't we? There are foods we like that are nourishing, and we eat them because we enjoy them, but because they do us good. Well, there are things that we need to hear in the Spirit that are in that same category, and I feel like some of the thoughts that I've had this morning are particularly applicable to me, but I just suspect I'm not the only one. Praise God.

I'm going to go back to a scripture we've used a lot lately. There's so many aspects of truth, and there's one that I want to get to, but this is the one in Colossians. You remember we had this service several weeks ago. We had prayers that God answers, and we read prayers that Paul was inspired to pray for God's people. We know this was God's will, and so there are prayers that we can, in faith, pray concerning ourselves, and know that, yes, we're praying according to the will of God, and we have every expectation that He will answer, so anyway. So in verse 9, Paul's prayer is this. For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will, through all wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord, and please Him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of His holy people in the kingdom of light. For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness, and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Praise God. How can you ever get tired of hearing those words? Praise God. I need them every single day. But you know we kind of need food every day, don't we? We need things that sustain us, and this is certainly very central. All the thoughts that have been expressed here are just right from the heart of God Himself expressed through Paul's pen. We've talked recently about living a life worthy of the Lord, and last week the emphasis was on love as the central thing. But always in Scripture, particularly in the New Testament, we discover things that

God is looking for from us. He's done so much for us, but what is He looking for? And obviously it involves changing us from what we are into what He has designed us to be. Because we know that we are in fact born into this world, and we have a nature that hates God and resists Him. In fact, I noticed something that if I'd noticed it before, I'd forgotten it, but anyway, we've often pointed out about how He's rescued us from the dominion of darkness, and I thought of that in terms of force, power in the sense of force. But the word is not actually force. The word is authority. You know, God has given Christ ... It's all authority in heaven and earth. Now, he's got the power to go with that, all right? You know the difference between power and authority? Suppose you had a criminal gang that was ruling over a town and mistreating its people, and somebody, you know, the governor sends somebody in and says, I'm giving you authority to rule here. And he begins to make demands of the criminal gang, and they say, you know, do this or else. And he says, you and what army? You know, you need some power to go with the authority. But here, the interesting thing is, we were saved from the authority of darkness. How many of you know that when Adam and Eve turned over, when they obeyed Lucifer, when they obeyed the devil, they literally gave him the authority that God had given them. That's why Satan was able to come to Jesus and say,

all this has been given to me, talking about the world and everything in it. We handed it over. And Satan has the rule over the people of this world legally because of sin. It's because of the choices men make. And so he rules here over people's hearts and lives. But what Jesus came to do was to absolutely rescue us to where we can literally look Satan in the eye and say, you have no authority over me anymore because of what Jesus did. I can't point to anything in me, but it's all him. But he has removed your authority to rule over me. Of course, we let him, don't we, sometimes. But I'll tell you, that's something that we can rejoice in. But anyway, it talks about how we need to grow in knowledge and all of those things. We've talked about that many times before. We're like a little child coming into this world. They don't know much. And so they've got to be taught and they've got to learn how the world works and how you're supposed to take care of yourself and react and interreact with other people and just gradually learn responsibility. And that's a lifetime process, isn't it? Not something where you can suddenly say, hey, sit in my class for a day and then you got it. This is an everyday thing. And that's one of the things that I felt like

the Lord emphasized to me that what he's talking about is certainly not an event where all this happens, but this is rather a lifestyle. This is something where every single day, this is what my life is about. It's not about the secular things that I do and all of that. I mean, that's involved. We do all those things that are responsibilities, but that's not what my life is about. What did Paul say? Think about all the things that Paul went through. And I mean, how many points of suffering, all the difficult things that he had to deal with, but what was his testimony? What was his life about? For to me, to live is what? It's Christ. That's the whole point. When I get up in the morning, my life is not about what have I got to do today? My life is about Christ. Now, I will do all those things, but it's the person doing them and the quality of the life of the person who's doing all these things. And that's what God wants to teach us. But you know, as little children, we've got to learn all of the things that we have to do just to get along in this world.

Well, the problem comes when all of the things that we have learned here basically get in the way of what God wants to do. Because we absolutely have been called out of this kingdom of darkness where we were under the authority of Satan because of sin. But God has called us out and given us a brand new life. What did it cost Jesus to possess the life that he had when he came out of that tomb? He had to let go of this one, didn't he? He had to lay it down completely. Isn't that what God calls everybody to do that comes to him? Exactly what that girl, that young woman did. Hand it over to him and say, Lord, my life does not belong to me anymore. My purpose in even living in this world is to live for you and to learn your ways and to learn how to express your heart and your life here in a daily basis. And I'm afraid that a lot of the times what people tend to do is just to relegate the things of God to some people, it's a Sunday morning. I'm gonna come in and I'm gonna sing songs, I'm gonna be spiritual and I'll talk about the Lord and I'll believe in him and all of that. But then we just, okay, what's for lunch? Back to real life. My real life. Our real life is meant to be every moment learning from Him and living out His nature. Now if that means laying bricks, that's fine, but what kind of person is laying those bricks? What do people get when they're around us?

May God help us, every single one. You know you don't take a vacation from being a Christian, from being a Jesus follower. Jesus didn't say, come be a part and party a while, He said, come be a part and rest a while. There's a time and place for that. You know I was thinking about how, you know we, well let me, there's so many thoughts I've had, Lord organize them, but you know He talks about all that we're supposed to do, pleasing Him, bearing fruit, growing in knowledge and all of that, but how does that happen? Where do we get the resources to do that? Because I don't have them, do you? Anybody here have the resources to be the kind of person God wants you to be? I don't have it. But what does He go on to say? Strengthened, in verse 11, strengthened with all power, boy I like that word all don't you? Not leaving anything out. Strengthened with all power, now that power there is force. That's the strength that I don't possess in order to be all that He wants me to be. It's strengthened with all power, but where does that come from? All right, strengthened with all power according to His glorious might. Does He have what it takes? Is there any lack in His power? Has He got the power, the source of all the power that every believer needs to possess and needs to have in order to live what we call the Christian life? How many of us live by that and access that all the time? That's kind of what brought this to my mind, because we don't live this out like we should. We profess to believe it, but I dare say we've got a lot to learn in this area. The first thing that came to me when I was thinking about all this was a song that our ensemble used to sing, and it's We've Got the Power.

It's a wonderful song and it makes us feel good to sing. We've got the power to tell the devil to take a hike or whatever. We got all that we need. The reality is we do, but learning how to live that out on a moment-by-moment, 24-7 lifestyle is another story. This is where growing and learning comes into play, because you think again about a child. Now all of the things that we do in our earthly lives, we have these bodies that we live in, but everything we do requires an expenditure of energy, doesn't it? There's going to be a source of energy that comes from somewhere. Well, where does that energy come from? We're going to have to eat. We're going to have to drink water and food, and it probably helps to breathe. We don't think about that, but if we didn't take in oxygen, nothing would happen. On top of that, we need some rest. These bodies, in order to be sustained and be able to put out and be able to lay bricks, for example, or anything else we do just to get up in the morning and overcome gravity, we're going to have to put some stuff in here that enables us to do that. I wonder how many of us live spiritual lives where we're just sort of expecting things to magically happen because we're the Lord's and He's going to give us everything. What would happen if you just didn't bother to cook supper, didn't bother to go to the store, didn't bother to cook anything, or go to the pantry, or any of you know what a pantry is? I remember those days. My sister just took a vacation up into a place where we used to vacation, and we had an old fashioned cottage back in the day when we cooked with wood, wood stove, and had an old fashioned pantry. I won't go back into all that, but anyway, it was interesting. But just think about what's involved. We take these things for granted. We do them because we know, hey, I'm hungry, I'm weak, I got to eat something, I got to

take something in. We understand the process that in order for me to have the strength I need to do the stuff I need to do, I've got to eat, I've got to drink, I've got to rest, I've got to breathe. Fortunately, breathing just happens because we know it happens. We know we need it, but every one of these things has to do, has a spiritual counterpart. Because yes, we need to do those things to live here, but the life that God is ... This life is going to end. I don't care what you do and how well you feed it, how well you take care of it, we're going to die. This life is going to end, but God has given us a life that is incapable of dying. And the call that he has upon us is to come to him and learn how to live this life and to grow up. How many times in the scriptures do you see where the Lord will ... Or an apostle will talk to believers and say, now you as young children, as little babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. That's the imagery here. Every one of us needs to grow. The reality is there's stuff we don't know, or we think we know, or we're relying on earthly wisdom to think we can get along in the kingdom of God, and we can't. God is going to have to change everything about the way we see ourselves, everything about the way we think. And we're going to have to spend time literally eating and drinking and breathing and resting and all the things that we see in the natural, we need them in the spirit. And I need more than I do, probably undoubtedly, to walk with him and to learn and to have an attitude where I say, Lord, I don't know the stuff I need to do. And here I am facing life. You're telling me that you want this from me. You want me to live a life that's pleasing to you and bearing fruit and all these supernatural things. I can't do that.

And even if you give me the power, Lord, I need you to explain this to me and help me to understand my part so that I can intelligently grow up as your child. Do you see the counterparts with the natural and the spiritual? Is he willing to do all these things? Do we have the power? Well, we've certainly got it available. I don't care what kind of an awesome machine you have that has power to do stuff. If you don't plug it in and get the power, it ain't going to do anything. Oh, God help me. Oh, God help every one of us to live with a more of a consciousness of where God is going with this and what he's seeking to do so that we can go to him and pray this prayer, but we can do it with an expectation. I know, I mean, boy, I struggle with this. I know I'm not the only one. We can say all day, we've got the power, but how do we live? Do we act like we've got the power when we have a real need? Notice what the power has to do with. It says, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, so he's got all we need. Why? Why do we need that? So that you may have great endurance and patience. Ah. Now you see why I need power, because everything about this world is against what God wants to do and what he wants to see in me. Everything is against it, and I need to be able to have something that gives me the power to endure that and to keep on going, to put up with it in the first place, but also the patience. Now, patience is not just waiting for something to happen. It's acting out, it's living out, it's walking out something, where I'm literally, I'm never

giving up. There's no such thing as giving up. In other words, if you have the patience that he's talking about, there's a sense of endurance, of a willingness to keep putting one foot in front of the other no matter what happens. Folks, this world will throw every challenge at us, as you well know, to our being, what God has called us to be. Every single challenge will be thrown at us, as to who we are, what we are, what we're able to do, what we think of ourselves, what other people think of us, circumstances that are difficult. Every bit of that will absolutely, will stand like a wall in front of us and say, you can't do that, you're not that. There's a thousand and one things that cause us to say, yeah, I've got the power, but where is it? I'm not really experiencing that like God wants me to. I'm not talking about somebody who wants power so they can do amazing things and everybody say, wow. God can do that, but it won't be somebody who looks at it that way. But I'll tell you, there is a power that you and I need. If we're going to just be, let alone do, I mean the first thing, I've got all this stuff that we've talked about so many times that wants to rule over me, and I grew up with these things gaining a hold on me, and I believe things that facilitate that, that help them to gain a hold. There are lies that I believe. So here I am, my old nature wants to rule over me, and maybe it does in some areas. Is that what God wants, or do we just sort of say, well I guess it's just the way I am. He's taken care of it. He's already, I mean I know I'm going to mess up, but he's already taken care of it at the cross. Praise God. God wants his children to absolutely experience the new life and grow up.

Now I'm thankful that he's not expecting us to just snap our fingers and suddenly leap into this great place of high spirituality, whatever that means, but it's like a little child. They're going to learn. They're going to make all kinds of mistakes and messes, but a wise child is going to learn from things that go wrong, and they're going to keep on growing. But here we are as God's children. Think of what he's done for us. Think of the price that he paid. Think of the call and the hope that he's planted in the heart of something beyond all this. If we'll lift our eyes from the battles that we fight, from the weaknesses that have bound us, and we realize I have access to the power of God to be able to say no to this nature, and I need to start believing it instead of just saying, well, I have the power, but ... Again, we need to get our buts in the right place. We can say, yeah, there's all kinds of challenges to living the Christian life, but God's grace is sufficient. Praise God. Praise God. So this is what it's all about. It's not only what we need to be, but the fact that being that requires overcoming a whole lot of stuff that we just do not have the power to do. And I'll tell you, part of growing up in him is learning that, and wow, there's so many different directions you can go here. But how do I learn, for example, that I can't do something if I think I can? Trying and failing. And I wonder how many times we're asking God, oh God, teach me your ways. Help me to grow. And his answer is to throw us in a situation where we fail miserably. Now how do we react to that? Do we say, oh God, I thought you were going to help me, smooth my life out, and give me

a victory in this area, and here I am, I'm failing worse than ever. And what's the Lord's wisdom in this? That's earthly thinking. We want God to move all the obstacles and help us do stuff. Take that obstacle out of my path so I can move ahead. And God wants us to learn how to overcome by his power and by his strength. By his strength. And 99 times out of 100, that's the problem that God is addressing in our lives. When we experience failure, God has allowed us to be in a situation where we are trying to do something in our own strength and failing. And that's God's love and God's mercy to allow that. Because he wants us to learn how to reckon on his power, and to ask for it, and to expect it, and to believe it. Whether we feel something or not, we're going to step out and say, God, I can do this because you have given me the strength to do it, and I'm trusting in you. He's God. So is God mean when he does that to us and allows us to fall in the mud? Or is he doing that because he says, child, you want to serve me, but you don't understand. You just don't ... There's an area here, you just don't quite get this. You can't do it. That's why you need a savior. That's why I had to save you in the first place. That would be ridiculous for me to tell you, this is what I want you to be and expect you to do that. But I have got everything that you need. But I need you to ... I want you to experience this. I'm going to go over, I think it's just a page in my Bible, to another page. passage that we see a lot and we have used a lot. And this is back in Philippians chapter 3. And this is Paul talking about how he, first of all, how he came to a knowledge of Christ

and realized that the religion in which he thought he was such a master and so acceptable to God, he basically tossed that in the garbage and said, that's totally worthless. I need Jesus. I need Christ. I need what he has done for me, all of that and none of this other. Praise God. I thank God we can leave the law behind and we have a law that produces a better righteousness than the law ever could. But listen to how he expresses that in verse 10, I want to know Christ. Now that word know, I know we pointed these things out many times, but let's, let's just focus for a moment here. I want to know, 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 he, 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, that undermine this simple truth. He literally wants to walk with us and us to him so we can know, 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 experience God's faith, experiencing God's faithfulness. That's, that's what God wants and that's what Paul wants. And this was not, like I said, this was not a, 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, everyone, 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 that, 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. Everybody 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. 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. 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, 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. Something 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. 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. 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 a people who walk with Him, but God wants a 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've 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 and 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 get rid of this self-absorbed way of thinking and doing where it's all about me and how I'm feeling and 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 in 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 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. This life is worthless. I gave that up when I came to Jesus. I laid that down 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. I press on to take hold of that and so forth. Reaching forth, I 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 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, okay, I've got to act real humble. Humility can be an act too. 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. I'm not even going to waste the time thinking about, can I do this or can I not? I'm going to do what God shows me to do and what He gives me to do. Paul was in a place where a demon was bothering him and he's praying, saying, God, get rid of this thing. It's in the way. I'm going to 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 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 where I recognize I am weak and if I feel weak, that's okay 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 real and you're acting as if it's true. You're taking action based 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 4. 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. 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 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. 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. I reckon on that. I ask for it. I look to him for it. He supplies it. I just do. I don't waste my time. Can I do this? Oh, I feel this. All the little things that we go through that just cause us basically to be unbelievers about it. I know that all of you have just reached a spiritual pinnacle where none of these things are issues. I'm asking you to pray for me because I haven't got there yet. 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. 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. 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. 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. There isn't a thing we've said this morning that we haven't said over and over again. 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. 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. He's God.