GOD'S POWER PART ONE

“GOD GIVES POWER TO HIS PEOPLE TO OVERCOME ALL THEIR INEQUITIES, TO EXECUTE HIS WILL. THE PROPHETS AND APOSTLES WHO PERFORMED MIRACLES DID SO BY GOD'S POWER, AS THEY THEMSELVES TESTIFY.

 ACTS 3:12: "WHEN PETER SAW IT, HE ADDRESSED THE PEOPLE, ‘YOU ISRAELITES,^* WHY DO YOU WONDER AT THIS, OR WHY DO YOU STARE AT US, AS THOUGH BY OUR OWN POWER OR PIETY WE HAD MADE HIM WALK?”

NATURE OF GOD’S POWER

In today’s world people are afflicted by various degrees of problems, terminal ills, financial difficulties, wars, family breakups, any sort of affliction is stalking Gods people. Why is all this happening, the Bible say my people perish for lack of knowledge. Know the word and the word will set you free and free indeed.  So we need not despair at the apparent failure of the church, but appeal to Him to manifest His Power, to establish his people and multiply them. For as Jeremiah said: Jeremiah 32:17 "Ah Lord God! It is you who made the heavens and the earth by your great Power and by your outstretched Arm! Nothing is too hard for you” There is nothing too hard for God.

It is a distressing fact that some Christians believe that God can save. They believe in God's saving Power, but they do not believe in His keeping Power. They believe in God's saving grace but have not yet received His keeping grace. They do not realize that He who has given them grace is also the One who will maintain them in His grace. The scriptures are very clear on this.

In Numbers 11: 21-22 “But Moses said, ‘The people I am with number six hundred thousand on foot; and you say, “I will give them meat, that they may eat for a whole month”! ²²Are there enough flocks and herds to slaughter for them? Are there enough fish in the sea to catch for them?’

God promised to feed the children of Israel on a diet of meat for the whole month. Well Moses being his human nature question this ability, the rationale that God was going to use to feed these people, he asked how many animals are going to be slaughtered, how many fish are going to be caught so as to feed these people. See, the same way we fail to recognize Gods Power Moses was at it. God had a perfect answer in Numbers 11: 23“Is the LORD’S power limited? Now you shall see whether My word will come true for you or not”

Joshua 14:11 says, "I am still as strong today as I was on the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war, and for going and coming.”  This is Caleb's word.  Caleb's strength was the same as it was in the day he spoke with Moses, in coping with the ordinary demands and challenges of everyday life. Though many years had elapsed in the interval, he was as strong as he had been in his earlier days. Here we see God's maintaining him with his keeping Power. Caleb's strength was the same on that day as it was years earlier. He was as strong at this time as he was then. He was no less vigorous at old age than he had been at his younger age. There is only one explanation for this; he had been kept by God. We can see that he tapped into Gods power. We are totally unable to keep ourselves in the grace of God. There is no guarantee that even several years after we have been saved we will be found in the same measure of faith we had in our earlier Christian life. We cannot abide in the grace of God by our own effort; He alone can maintain us in His grace and power.

What was the condition for Caleb to experience God's keeping power? In Joshua 14:14, "So Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholeheartedly followed the Lord, the God of Israel. He wholly followed the Lord God of Israel." And how did he do this? In Numbers 13:30, "But Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, ‘Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.’  We are well able to prevail. A person who wholly follows the Lord is one who believes that the promises of God are trustworthy, that He is with His people, and that they are well able to overcome all the challenges of this world. My brethrens, do you believe this? Many people believe, but they waver in their faith. They are very rigid. They sing their song of praise, but though the words are right, there is something wrong with them. In Caleb's case it was not so; He said, "Let us go up at once and posses it (the power)." A person who wholly follows the Lord and reckons Him to be trustworthy is one who does the will of God and does it immediately.