POWER PARADOX

POWER-PARADOX

Can you think of POWER aside from MONEY? Just pause on that for a moment...POWER aside from MONEY...?

It would seem in this present age that nothing significant can be done without money, wouldn’t you say? Be honest now! (Eccl 10:19 says, “...money is the answer to everything.”) All that really means is that money is a good substitute for the real thing! And with money comes all the other powers: popularity, prominence, profile, influence and control. Ooh, we like those! Scripture says that in these closing days, Christians will “have a form of godliness but deny its power. Have nothing to do with them.” (2 Tim. 3:5) Money’s a great substitute for real power, it really is, but we’re told to make a wide berth around the “Prosperity Plague”. There’s nothing quite like the real thing: Check out these penniless dudes from the book of Acts: “But Peter said, "I don't have any money for you. But I'll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!" [7] Then Peter took the lame man by the right hand and helped him up. And as he did, the man's feet and anklebones were healed and strengthened.” (Acts 3:6-7) Power without money? I think so.

So here’s a thought: What if God chose to put His power exactly where we think it doesn’t belong? (Is 55:8)

What do you mean?

What if God clapped His hands in delight over all of our weaknesses and frailties, and said, “Now there’s a person I can really invest God-power into.”?

“You must be joking. That’s silly. Surely God needs me to “get my act together”, to “get all my ducks in a row”... (OOPS, sorry, that’s a negative confession – I’m not a duck! Cancel that!) But really, surely God will use me because, well... “... I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. [12] 'I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get, I don’t play in mud puddles, I soar like an eagle...and blah...blah...blah...' (See Luke 18:11-12) Mmmm...

That seems like a perfect landing place for celebrity status in Jesus, doesn’t it? But, friends, it’s not the place of God-POWER! Our brow-beaten brother Paul discovered the amazing power-paradox in 2 Cor. 12:9-10, where he writes, “And (Jesus) has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for POWER IS PERFECTED IN WEAKNESS." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my WEAKNESSES, so that the POWER of Christ may dwell in me. [10] Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am WEAK, then I am (“POWERFUL” YLT). (NASB-U)

In the economy of grace, we are only POWER-FULL when we are WEAK! Perfect POWER makes a soft-landing. Go ahead, and try’n package that for resale in this “control-freak” world!