Tap Into Power

(March 17, 2021) Imagine two men walking into a dark room. One stares at the light switch and  says, “Everyone talks about how powerful electricity is, but I won’t use it. I’ve read about it, and it just doesn’t make any sense to me. How can I trust  something I don’t understand?” The other guy flips on the light, turns on the  computer, pours himself a cup of hot coffee, picks a favorite song from his playlist  and starts humming along to the music. 

Sometimes we can be like the first guy when it comes to our faith. We may be slow to trust God. We want to understand Him on an intellectual level before  we’re willing to trust Him on a spiritual level. We’ve read about Him and we know about Him, and yet we haven’t let Him into our hearts or into our daily lives.  We think, “If only I could let myself believe the promises of Christ…” Sometimes  we just need to ask ourselves, “What do those promises look like?” 

Here’s a scripture passage that came up recently:  

“For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in  himself. And he gave him power to judge because he is the Son of Man.” (John 5:26-27) 

What does the power of Christ look like? Here’s one intellectual explanation: 

Jesus has paid the price for our sins. He took upon Himself all our guilt – past,  present, and future, because God is not bound by time or space – and nailed it all  to the cross. He promises us that He will forgive us time and time again, and so  we can let go of our guilt and move forward. This is the purpose of His coming to  earth: that we might believe in Him so that we can ‘tap into’ His power to love,  forgive, serve, heal, and do things as great as He did and even greater (see John  3:16 and John 14:11-13). 

Now, let’s let the above words sink from our head into our soul. Let’s let them  sink so deeply that they inspire us to desire Christ’s power and put it into action. 

Let’s ask Him to soften our hearts and show us how He wants to use us to share  His love in the world, with His power. Here are just a few of the countless ways  the power of Christ may move us: 

The power of Christ moves us to serve the needy; strengthens us to speak kindly  in times of stress; prompts us to call a friend we haven’t heard from in a while; nudges us to pray for our adversaries; humbles us to offer or ask forgiveness; and  gives us courage in times of trouble. The ideas and gut feelings we get that  prompt us to do an act of kindness, to speak or bite our tongue, to pray, work, relax, serve and be served – all of these and more come from God through Jesus  when we let down our defenses and listen for His direction (see John 14:25-27). 

Let’s not keep our faith an intellectual exercise. Let’s let God soften our hearts.  Let’s let Him empower us to do His work; what that looks like will be different  from person to person. Let’s trust Him and all His promises. 

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13 

“Lord, empower me to love as You love.” 

This article is a personal reflection by Gina Bedell © 2021. It and other reflections written by her invite  the reader to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual  reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other persons who may guide the reader to a deeper faith  and understanding of God’s love and will for their life.