Achieving Power Psalms 66:1-5 2 Chronicles 20:6 2 Chronicles 32:7 Job 9:4 Psalms 147:5 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 Ephesians 1:18-21 1 Chronicles 29:10-13 09.19.18

ACHIEVING POWER

BREAD

¹ Shout with joy to God, all the earth! ² Sing the glory of his name; make his praise glorious! ³ Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds! So great is your power that your enemies cringe before you. ⁴ All the earth bows down to you; they sing praise to you, they sing praise to your name.” Selah ⁵ Come and see what God has done, how awesome his works in man’s behalf! Psalm 66:1-5 (NIV)

⁶ “O LORD, God of our fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you.”   2 Chronicles 20:6 (NIV)

⁷ “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for there is a greater power with us than with him.”  2 Chronicles 32:7 (NIV)

⁴ His wisdom is profound, his power is vast. Who has resisted him and come out unscathed? Job 9:4 (NIV)

⁵ Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.  Psalm 147:5 (NIV)

⁷ To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. ⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.  ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (NIV)

¹⁸ I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹ and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, ²⁰ which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, ²¹ far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.  Ephesians 1:18-21 (NIV)

¹⁰ “Praise be to you, O LORD, God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.
¹¹ Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. ¹² Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. ¹³ Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.”  1 Chronicles 29:10-13 (NIV)

BUTTER

“When a man has not strength, if he leans on God, he becomes powerful.”   D.L. Moody

“The good news of the gospel is not that God will provide a way to make life easier. The good news of the gospel, for this life, is that He will make our lives better. We will be empowered to draw close to God and to love others well and to do both for one central purpose, to glorify God, to make Him look good to any who watch us live.”  Larry Crabb

“Prayer gives us the significance of frontline forces and gives God the glory of a limitless Provider. The one who gives the power gets the glory. Thus, prayer safeguards the supremacy of God in missions while linking us with endless grace for every need.”   John Piper

“If I am going to walk in this present life according to my high calling as a Christian, I need a strength higher than my own strength. I need the power of Christ. How is this power of Christ to be mine? It’s not enough just to imagine that I have this power. It’s not even enough to take the second step and reckon myself dead to sin and alive to Christ. There must also be a communication of the power of Christ to me through the agency of the Holy Spirit who indwells me.”   Francis Schaeffer

“When we can do nothing Jesus can do all things; let us enlist His powerful aid upon our side, and all will be well.”  Charles Spurgeon

“Lean continually and exclusively on the power of the Holy Spirit. He knows what souls need, and He can supply it. But he must be trusted and used. It will not do to lean partly on self and partly on the Spirit.”  C H Macintosh

“Consider the parallels between Pharaoh and Satan.  Both are unyielding enemies, coveting the power of God for themselves.  Both have been plundered by the Almighty, and both are enraged beyond endurance.  Both have assembled vast armies for the destruction of God’s people – yet neither seems to realize how utterly defeated he already was and is.”  Robert J. Morgan

“The fact that Jesus Christ is to come again is not a reason for star-gazing, but for working in the power of the Holy Ghost.” Charles Spurgeon

“It costs much to obtain the power of the Spirit:  It costs self-surrender and humiliation and a yielding up of our most precious things to God; it costs the perseverance of long waiting, and the faith of strong trust.  But when we are really in that power, we shall find this difference, that whereas before, it was hard for us to do the easiest things, now it is easy for us to do the hard things.”    A. J. Gordon

“Only two things have ever changed the human soul: the fall and grace, the power of Satan and the power of God.  And God is infinitely more powerful.  Nothing is stronger than grace. Satan doesn’t have any. God is defined by it.”  Larry Crabb

“A primary qualification for serving God with any amount of success, and for doing God’s work well and triumphantly, is a sense of our own weakness.  When God’s warrior marches forth to battle, strong in his own might, when he boasts, ‘I know that I shall conquer, my own right arm and my conquering sword shall get unto me the victory’, defeat is not far distant.  God will not go forth with that man who marches in his own strength.  He who reckoneth on victory thus has reckoned wrongly, for ‘it is not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts’.  They who go forth to fight, boasting of their prowess, shall return with their gay banners trailed in the dust, and their armour stained with disgrace.  Those who serve God must serve Him in His own way, and in His strength, or He will never accept their service.  That which man doth, unaided by divine strength, God can never own.  The mere fruits of the earth He casteth away; He will only reap that corn, the seed of which was sown from heaven, watered by grace, and ripened by the sun of divine love.  God will empty out all that thou hast before He will put His own into thee; He will first clean out the granaries before He will fill them with the finest of the wheat……Your emptiness is but the preparation for your being filled, and your casting down is but the making ready for your lifting up.”   C. H. Spurgeon 

“Sin is a power in our life.  Let us fairly understand that it can only be met by another power.”  Henry Drummond

“Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger people! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks.”  Phillips Brooks

“Sometimes the enemy seems to get an advantage over us; but the battle is not over yet.  At last thou shalt have the victory, and carry the day for all that.  In hard struggles remember the power of Christ, who, in his resurrection, broke through everything.  With him thou canst also break through, and be more than conqueror.  Yea, in every conflict, if thy faith be firm, thou canst be sure of victory beforehand; for faith engages Christ’s power, and his power ensureth victory; it is as impossible for thine enemies to keep thee always in bonds, as it was impossible that Christ could be kept in the grave by the stone, seal, and keepers.  Nay, the greater their force is, the more glorious will be the victory of Christ over them.”  K. H. Von Bogatzky

“What is needed is not mere present professions, but perseverance to the end in the power of faith.”    Ignatius of Antioch

“Contrary to the world's beliefs, the spiritual fruit of self-control does not come about through the discipline of self-mastery, but rather through surrendering ourselves to God's control. None of us fully have the power, capability, or wisdom to master our own lives. You cannot resist all the temptations that are hurled at you, control the behavior of those closest to you, or limit the ideas that pop into your mind. What you can do is surrender your life to the Holy Spirit. You can control how you respond, yield, and submit to Him.”    Michael Youssef

“His love is unfailing, His Word unchangeable, His power ever the same; therefore the heart that trusts Him is kept in ‘perfect peace’…I know He tries me only to increase my faith, and that it is all in love.  Well, if He is glorified, I am content.”    Hudson Taylor

“For those who love God everything is aboveboard.  To know Him is to know what He requires and more than that, it is to have the power to carry it out.  In fact these two—enlightenment and empowering—go hand in hand, and where they do not, then the Lord is not in it.”    Mike Mason

HEART SAVOR

·         God alone has all-achieving power.  No force is greater except perhaps His love.

·         The human will cannot change a heart – it will always prove wanting.  It is God’s power manifested through the indwelling Holy Spirit in a life that can change the leanings of a soul.

·         Power and might are in God’s hand – nothing is too hard for Him.