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The Power to Change // Power Unlimited, Part 2
The Bible tells us (Ephesians Chapter 1) That God has already made His incredible great power, His resurrection power, available to each and every person who believes in Jesus. So today, were going to take a look at what happens, when we lay hold of that power. As you can imagine, I speak with a lot of people. People who respond to this radio program, people I meet in my travels, people who’ve hear me speak and want to know how to apply it to their lives. And most people, come to me with a problem. This is working in my life … and I just don’t know why. That isn’t working in my life … and I don’t know what to do about it. I want to follow Jesus … but Satan keeps on winning as he tempts me with this sin or that sin. Over and over again, I hear the same thing, the same question, the same problem, the same frustration in people’s voices. Why isn’t my life all that Jesus promised it would be?! It’s a question that plagues many a Christ follower. It causes many to fall by the wayside. It causes many people to live a life that falls so far short of all that it could be in Christ. To my way of thinking, this is one of the greatest tragedies playing itself out in the Kingdom of God today. And just like many of the lifestyle and diet related illnesses that are killing people across the globe, this is a sickness that is completely avoidable. Here is what I see happening in God’s Kingdom, amongst God’s people. The societies in which we live are moving further and further away from God. Look at the United States. A country of religious freedom, founded by the pilgrims, who came to the land to have the freedom to worship God. A nation who, on its dollar bill, has the words “In God we trust”. And now, a country, where it’s illegal to pray at school, illegal for an officer in the military to share his faith or a Bible with a soldier, a country where four in ten unborn children are ‘terminated’ – that’s a genocide of around 1.2 million children each year. I’m not just picking on the US of A … it’s happening right around the globe. Societies founded on Christian love, as they become more secular, are shifting further and further away from God. And they’re behaving as though this is progress. It’s progress to allow one man to marry another man, or a woman to marry another woman. It’s progress to allow a woman to choose whether or not to kill her unborn child. It’s progress for women not to respect their husbands and men not to cherish their wives. And anybody who stands in the way of this so-called ‘progress’ is a narrow-minded, conservative bigot. And these sweeping changes are sweeping many a Christian along them. Christians en masse are forsaking a life based on God’s Word, for a life based on the world’s ways. And not just individual Christians, but preachers, Bible teachers, churches and denominations. And then we wonder why things aren’t going so well for us in our lives. Really?! Back to the Bible International based in Lincoln Nebraska, is a ministry that I have been closely involved with now for a good many years. They in fact founded the ministry of Christianityworks that I now lead here in Australia, way back in 1957. Part of Back to the Bible is the Centre for Bible Engagement, which has conducted extensive research around the world on the impact in the lives of men and woman, who are engaged with God’s Word on a regular basis. Remember, the Bible itself says that there is incredible power to defeat Satan, in God’s Word: … our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Ephesians 6:12-17) The only offensive weapon in our spiritual armour given to us by God is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. All the other parts of the armour are defensive, which is good, but you don’t win a battle by going on the defence. You have to go on the offence, you have to attack the enemy to defeat him. And the one tool, the one weapon that God has given us to do that, is the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. So the Centre for Bible Engagement researched the spiritual lives of more than 100,000 people 21 countries, ranging from ages of eight to 80 years. They began with this question: What is it, of all the things that Christians do, that is the most powerful predictor of spiritual growth? When you think about it, Christians do a lot of things to express their faith. They go to church, they pray, the listen to sermons, they attend home groups, they give, they serve … and many more things. The Centre of Bible Engagement’s research project wanted to find out which ones of those had the most impact in the life of a Christian. That’s not a bad question to ask through a large, scientifically constituted, statistically valid, international research project. That’s not a bad question to ask, for anyone who wants to lay hold the super-abundant life that Jesus promised (John 10:10) to give us. The conclusions of this research was as follows (and I quote from their report): The findings consistently show that engaging in the Bible four or more days a week is the single most powerful predictor of spiritual growth – and they defined spiritual growth as becoming less of the person I was before I committed my life to Jesus and more like Christ in my thoughts, words and deeds. In fact, I know Arnie Cole, the President of Back to the Bible pretty well. His background is as a professional researcher and statistician. And he said to me that statistically speaking, the correlation between engaging with God’s Word, the Bible four times a week or more and spiritual growth, is stronger than the correlation between smoking and lung cancer. Just think about that. What powerful evidence of the importance of receiving, reflecting on and responding to God’s Word having a powerful impact in changing our lives. Making the changes that we ourselves have been powerless to change. Let me come back to the Apostle Paul’s reflection on this whole question of the power to change: Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 7:24) The answer is that only God can give us the power to change, the resurrection power to be able to live the born-again, new, super-abundant life that Jesus came to give us. What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:1-4) Do you see? God’s plan is for you to walk in the newness of life, the resurrection life made available to you through the Cross and the Empty tomb. And the power to live that life is something that you will find in the Word of God, as the Spirit of God breathes His Word into your heart: All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. (1 Tim 3:16-17) That’s where you’ll find the power to change – power unlimited. In God’s Word. So … you have to ask yourself, why do so many Christians ignore their Bibles?!
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