Ephesians 1: 18-20
:18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, :19 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, :20 Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,
We are still on the subject of Paul's prayer for the the knowledge of the believers to grow, the eyes of their understanding to be enlightened. We spoke of the hope of His calling that comes and grows with the knowledge we posses and of the inheritance we come to know as our knowledge in Christ grows. Today we want to focus on the last prayer request of Paul for the believers and that is that they would come to know "The exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe." I want to point out that every thing Paul has prayed that they would come to know, are all things that are only fully known by experience. One cannot know hope unless it has been known by experience, you also can't know an inheritance until you've walked the hills and valleys and seen with your own eye the streams and rivers of that property that you inherited and lastly power is as well only known by experience. It's true that we can have a head knowledge of all these three things but to know them like Paul is speaking of, to have the eyes of our understanding enlightened, requires experience. To know is one thing but to understand is another and it is in the sense of understanding by experience that God wants believers to know these truths. We have made illustrations each day to help us understand hope, inheritance and today, power.
The word power in our verse was translated from the Greek word "Dunamis", which means miraculous power, it is also where our English word dynamite is derived from. I don't have much experience with the Greek language but I do have some experience with dynamite and power that it has. Growing up my father kept dynamite in the barn, it was mainly for his business but also for beaver dams and every once in awhile just to watch the reaction on people's faces who had never experienced it. We would explode rocks in the ground, drill holes deep into the rock and drop a stick of dynamite smaller than your forearm in and get way back. We would then send a small electrical charge to the cap of that dynamite and that one small piece of dynamite would shake the ground with such force that could be felt in your chest and the rock that had previously stood in the way was now split. As I said above we used it on the farm as well, we had a problem beavers getting into our ponds and creeks on the property, they would cut down trees and build a dam which restricted the flow of water to the rest of the property. In we'd go with a stick of dynamite as small as the smallest sticks making up the beavers dam and that one stick of dynamite would send the dam into thousands of pieces and the creek or pond would be free to flow again. Dynamite has the ability to make short work of what would be an extremely long and hard task, with the push of a button or the ignition of a fuse what would have taken days months or even years is done in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye even.
God's power to us-ward who believe has the same, but much greater, ability to change what seems unchangeable. Cold hard hearts of stone, hearts that would never change, hearts that time and experience have only harden are, in an instant, made soft and useful to God, the very second a sinner is saved He experiences that power, power that does in an instant what all of eternity could never do, power that takes cold hard hearts of stone and makes them flesh, power that makes the drunkard sober, power that makes violent men loving fathers, power that changes in an instant the very nature of a man, such power that brings us from death unto life. I've seen this power in others and in my own life, power that changed my father and mother, power that changed me. Oh to know the power of God! A knowledge that only comes from experience! The same power that was wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead! Dear reader, I hope you have experienced this power,and for those of us that have, we know its ability to do what could never be done otherwise. This power brought Christ from the lowest point imaginable to the highest, from the grave to the right hand of God. Now if the power of God can reach from the grave to the throne of heaven,is there any place, any situation, any hardship, anything at all that is not possible? No, all things are possible with God.
When I was saved was just the first time I experienced His power and there have been countless other times I've seen Him work in great power in my life. Times when the streams of devotion had been stopped by so called "little" sins, stopped so that life giving water would never reach the interior of my soul. Like the beavers of our story above, sin crept in and before I knew it I had a problem that wouldn't be soon resolved without a show of extreme power. My father showed up right on time with the power that I so desperately needed to restore flow and fellowship with him and in an instant all the desire for sin was resolved and and the streams of tears and fellowship were restored. Oh the great power of God to restore! Thank God! Had it not been for His power to save, to keep, to maintain and restore I would have surely perished by now but His power has delivered me from sin, from self and will again before this life has ended.
Dear Christian, do you remember when God saved you by His marvelous power? When your cold, hard, sinful heart was melted in an instant? Have you since then lost the streams of tears and fellowship? have the pest of sin and care stopped up the life giving flow of your soul? Are you weary from the lack of fellowship? Your father has in his storehouse more power than we could imagine and in an instant he can do away with what is causing the loss of life giving fellowship.
I remember I was the one to find the beaver dam on our property once. I couldn't wait to tell my father what i had found, I knew exactly how we would spend our afternoon that day. We took a trip down to the barn, grabbed the dynamite and went directly to the source of the problem and I watched my father stick in the dynamite, he even let me light the fuse. In a instant the dam was gone thanks to my fathers supply and willingness. Dear reader, go to your father, tell him of the things that have brought you to the current situation you are in and He has a vast supply and is willing to exercise that power for your good. Spend your day finding and dealing with what needs to be dealt with, you and The Father will do it together. How foolish it would have been to try to disassembly the dam I found when I knew my father had the ability to do in an instant what would have taken me days. Our father has a vast supply of power and it is foolishness to attempt anything in our own power.
1 Corinthians 4:20 For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.
According to the riches of His Grace!!