1 Corinthians 4:20 “For the Kingdom of God I not just a lot of words; it is living by God’s power.”
I read the Golden Compass series a few months ago. It’s written by an atheist so I know some Christians have issues with reading it. It was an entertaining story and it definitely didn’t persuade me to think that God doesn’t exist. In fact, it had the opposite affect. It reminded me of how powerful God really is. In the story, humans are attempting and eventually succeed at dethroning and killing God. God is portrayed as a old, decrepit, dying man that relies on angels to help him get around. He eventually dies of old age. It was humorous to me as I read the story about how God was portrayed, it was just so….wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. By very definition, it was wrong. It would be like describing a dog by the way they chirp and fly around. That’s just wrong. That’s not the definition of a dog at all. That is something completely different (namely, a bird).
That’s how God was portrayed, by using the complete opposite definition. God by very definition can’t be thwarted by human kind. That’s why he is a god, because he is greater than humans. It was ridiculous and foolish to read about a mere man with armies of other mere men, with animals, and technology and whatever else battling to take down God. The true God, the God that I have grown up knowing and loving and trusting, could destroy them all with a blink of his eye. But the God I know wouldn’t. Instead of showing his power through brute force, he chose to show it through humility and submission. Instead of commanding from high above, he chose to come down, to squat down next to us at our level and talk with us.
God’s power is so much more than these simple words and yet I see it in simple ways all the time. God’s power is seen in the miracle of a baby being born, in the seasons changing, in the tides of the ocean, in the healing of destructive behavior, in the forgiveness of his people, in the unconditional love of the absolutely unlovable, namely us…me.
God’s power is someone like me serving him, believing in him, living in that power, all the days of my life, never giving up on it, never swaying from it, but relying on it more and more every day. I see living in God’s power in my grandmother. She began following Jesus in her early thirties. She’s turning 80 this year. 50 years!! 50 years of believing that the God who has given and taken away is alive and real and loving and powerful, that a relationship with him is worthy of 50 years. I am amazed by her faithfulness, by her honest love of Jesus and his people, and by her heartfelt desire to continue to live in God’s power every moment of every day.
I want so much to live in God’s power everyday, but I don’t know exactly how to do that. I’m still learning what that looks like day in and day out for the rest of my life. I don’t want my faith to just be words, I want it to be lived out in God’s power through me. I’m thankful to my grandma for showing me what that looks like for the last almost 29 years of my life. I look forward to my 50 years of faithfulness.
