The Power of God (part 6) – Overcoming Doubt
Introduction. God’s gift of power in the material realm has greatly broadened our understanding of what is possible. Only a few centuries ago, even the strongest and fittest could not imagine traveling more 100 miles in a day. Today with cars and concrete roads, it is a simple matter to plan a trip of 1000 miles in a day. With the airplane, we can plan a non-stop trip of 9000 miles. Most amazing is the rocket, moving at about 17,500 mph, it reaches an orbit of 270 miles in less than ten minutes. Once in orbit, every 90 minutes it circles the earth covering about 25,000 miles. Each day, the space station orbits the earth about 16 times, traveling nearly 400,000 miles. The power God has placed in oil and electricity joined with God’s gift of subduing them has allowed us to take dominion and distance is no longer daunting or fearful. We can easily plan to be halfway around the world tomorrow and back home the next day.
The greatness of God’s own power was illustrated by far greater things than the power we have been given access to. When we look at the results of God creating the entire universe in six days and resting on the seventh, we are brought face to face with His everlasting power. Since it was at that same time that all our power sources and the materials we use today to access them were created, they too reveal His everlasting power. All glory, praise and confidence we gain from them should therefore be going directly to Him.
When we add all the interventions like those at the flood, Sodom, and Egypt, we should realize that such things are still within His power today. When we also read of His ability to answer prayers like He did for Solomon when asking for wisdom or Elijah when asking for rain, it continues to build and make our understanding clearer. Our hearts soar with joy and assurance as we read each miracle Jesus performed. He easily set aside the normal working of the natural order when He healed every disease and birth defect, raised the dead, walked on water and calmed the stormy seas. Our sense of confidence and stability are even more greatly enhanced as we read of God’s providential interventions either to spare lives, bless His servants, or as with Joseph and Esther, to work out His purposes and plans.
While many scoff at or doubt these things, we are confident! We know that He could do far more than this whenever the need arises. There is nothing man can do to thwart any of God’s plans. Just as we read with amusement those who lived before us who scoffed at the early inventors as they predicted the great things electricity or gasoline would allow us to do, so we do with those today who doubt either the existence or power of God. We have an unshakeable confidence in God’s power and along with David we too can say “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. ... 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” (Ps. 23:4).
Hence, we have a unique perspective which it is wise for us to consider. Every power source we are aware of today should bolster and strengthen our faith and confidence concerning all that God has revealed about the power He possessed to create them. Although the circumstances are different, it still closely mirrors the unique perspective of the Roman centurion in Matt. 8. Just as we do, he also was able to apply his own special circumstances as a means to have complete confidence in Jesus’ power. As he heard or witnessed Jesus’ power to change the normal operations of the natural order, he compared it to his own power. Just as Rome had given him the authority to command and be obeyed, so God had given authority and power to Jesus to command the material creation and be obeyed. His unique perspective gave him a knowledge that allowed him to develop a faith far superior to those around him: “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” (Mt. 8:8-9). While even Jesus’ chosen apostles had watched Him perform each act of power in miracles, they never made this application while He was alive that this Gentile centurion from the Roman army saw clearly.
The centurion understood that Jesus could do with sickness, death and the natural order what he could do with those soldiers who were under him. He knew there was nothing that Jesus could not do. The fact that Jesus was amazed at this obvious conclusion revealed how difficult it must be to do this. He had not found a faith like that among all those who were then living in Israel and was very pleased to see it in this Gentile. “When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!” (Mt. 8:10).
For a few moments, imagine how you would explain to someone living two centuries ago that it would soon be possible to see and speak to someone anywhere in the world, or in traveling through the skies, one could make the journey from Europe to the new world in less than a day. They could never believe it! The power we take for granted in a computer, cell phone, furnace, television, or rocket would be beyond their ability to even imagine. Their minds would be unable to make the leap we can easily make since it is all around us. Yet their inability to imagine it would not deter us from our own confidence.
This is exactly what God sought to do for us. When He revealed to us the power, glory and eternity of the spiritual realm where He lives, we too find some things hard to believe. Yet cumulatively, through the material creation and Jesus’ ability to change the natural order whenever He chose to do so, we can be led to the same convictions we have with our own power and the centurion had with his authority. Jesus was indeed “the Word, who was with God, was God and all things truly were created through Him.” Although He had “become flesh and dwelt among us,” the full magnitude of His power was only dimly illustrated by His miracles. Even His transfiguration revealed the greatness of what lay beneath that flesh. This is what the centurion saw and what led Jesus to praise him. It is what we are expected to see and every possible method we have should be used to do this.
This is the issue we all face day by day. The day must never come when our understanding of His dominion over power does not bring confidence and boldness. When we get up each day, we feel no fear that the car won’t start or there won’t be any hot water. We don’t go through life doubting the power we access daily through electricity and natural gas. We have great confidence in the consistent power of the material creation and the dominion we hold through it. Like the centurion, this should become our springboard, catapulting us into that same bold confidence in God and His power. We should use prayer, live with a continual expectation of divine providence, and use the Scriptures to strengthen and bolster our faith, reading about His power in the creation, interventions, miracles and providence.
Conclusion. If we truly want to know the joy of being “more than conquerors through Him that loved us,” we must make these applications. If we want to gain the victory that overcomes the world, we will find it in our faith. We can gain so much if we simply allow our faith and trust to become unshakeable.
The greatness of God’s own power was illustrated by far greater things than the power we have been given access to. When we look at the results of God creating the entire universe in six days and resting on the seventh, we are brought face to face with His everlasting power. Since it was at that same time that all our power sources and the materials we use today to access them were created, they too reveal His everlasting power. All glory, praise and confidence we gain from them should therefore be going directly to Him.
When we add all the interventions like those at the flood, Sodom, and Egypt, we should realize that such things are still within His power today. When we also read of His ability to answer prayers like He did for Solomon when asking for wisdom or Elijah when asking for rain, it continues to build and make our understanding clearer. Our hearts soar with joy and assurance as we read each miracle Jesus performed. He easily set aside the normal working of the natural order when He healed every disease and birth defect, raised the dead, walked on water and calmed the stormy seas. Our sense of confidence and stability are even more greatly enhanced as we read of God’s providential interventions either to spare lives, bless His servants, or as with Joseph and Esther, to work out His purposes and plans.
While many scoff at or doubt these things, we are confident! We know that He could do far more than this whenever the need arises. There is nothing man can do to thwart any of God’s plans. Just as we read with amusement those who lived before us who scoffed at the early inventors as they predicted the great things electricity or gasoline would allow us to do, so we do with those today who doubt either the existence or power of God. We have an unshakeable confidence in God’s power and along with David we too can say “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. ... 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” (Ps. 23:4).
Hence, we have a unique perspective which it is wise for us to consider. Every power source we are aware of today should bolster and strengthen our faith and confidence concerning all that God has revealed about the power He possessed to create them. Although the circumstances are different, it still closely mirrors the unique perspective of the Roman centurion in Matt. 8. Just as we do, he also was able to apply his own special circumstances as a means to have complete confidence in Jesus’ power. As he heard or witnessed Jesus’ power to change the normal operations of the natural order, he compared it to his own power. Just as Rome had given him the authority to command and be obeyed, so God had given authority and power to Jesus to command the material creation and be obeyed. His unique perspective gave him a knowledge that allowed him to develop a faith far superior to those around him: “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” (Mt. 8:8-9). While even Jesus’ chosen apostles had watched Him perform each act of power in miracles, they never made this application while He was alive that this Gentile centurion from the Roman army saw clearly.
The centurion understood that Jesus could do with sickness, death and the natural order what he could do with those soldiers who were under him. He knew there was nothing that Jesus could not do. The fact that Jesus was amazed at this obvious conclusion revealed how difficult it must be to do this. He had not found a faith like that among all those who were then living in Israel and was very pleased to see it in this Gentile. “When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!” (Mt. 8:10).
For a few moments, imagine how you would explain to someone living two centuries ago that it would soon be possible to see and speak to someone anywhere in the world, or in traveling through the skies, one could make the journey from Europe to the new world in less than a day. They could never believe it! The power we take for granted in a computer, cell phone, furnace, television, or rocket would be beyond their ability to even imagine. Their minds would be unable to make the leap we can easily make since it is all around us. Yet their inability to imagine it would not deter us from our own confidence.
This is exactly what God sought to do for us. When He revealed to us the power, glory and eternity of the spiritual realm where He lives, we too find some things hard to believe. Yet cumulatively, through the material creation and Jesus’ ability to change the natural order whenever He chose to do so, we can be led to the same convictions we have with our own power and the centurion had with his authority. Jesus was indeed “the Word, who was with God, was God and all things truly were created through Him.” Although He had “become flesh and dwelt among us,” the full magnitude of His power was only dimly illustrated by His miracles. Even His transfiguration revealed the greatness of what lay beneath that flesh. This is what the centurion saw and what led Jesus to praise him. It is what we are expected to see and every possible method we have should be used to do this.
This is the issue we all face day by day. The day must never come when our understanding of His dominion over power does not bring confidence and boldness. When we get up each day, we feel no fear that the car won’t start or there won’t be any hot water. We don’t go through life doubting the power we access daily through electricity and natural gas. We have great confidence in the consistent power of the material creation and the dominion we hold through it. Like the centurion, this should become our springboard, catapulting us into that same bold confidence in God and His power. We should use prayer, live with a continual expectation of divine providence, and use the Scriptures to strengthen and bolster our faith, reading about His power in the creation, interventions, miracles and providence.
Conclusion. If we truly want to know the joy of being “more than conquerors through Him that loved us,” we must make these applications. If we want to gain the victory that overcomes the world, we will find it in our faith. We can gain so much if we simply allow our faith and trust to become unshakeable.
- Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. 29 He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, 31 But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. (Isa. 40:25-31).