The Same Power

 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.  Romans 8:11

I heard a woman named Rebecca Morgan tell a powerful story recently. She was speaking of her recent participation in a 26 mile marathon run. She had trained and prepared for it, but it was a distance she had never run before. She began the race which took place on a very warm December day. As she neared the 20 mile mark, she felt her strength waning and her body breaking down. She wanted to quit. All along the route were people cheering the runners on and some recognized who she was. Along that route was a young girl in a wheelchair. She held a sign that said, "The same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you." Rebecca was impacted by the power of that truth. She determined that she would trust in that power above and beyond how she felt or what her body sought to get her to do. By His strength, His resurrection, power, she would finish the race, and that power, that same power that did raise Christ from the dead was alive in her and enabled her to do what she had believed impossible.

What would happen in our lives if we could dare to believe that truth and that promise? Not just as concerns physical impossibilities, but emotional, mental, and spiritual as well? What if we believed it as concerns our circumstantial or relational, marital, or familial impossibilities? What would our lives look like if we could believe the truth of Romans 8:11, that the infinite power of the Father who raised His Son Jesus Christ from the dead, is alive within all who believe and trust in Him, and is alive in us? In you and in me? What wonders would we see? What miracles would we behold? We would surely experience the truth of His promise that "we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us."

A young girl, physically confined to a wheelchair, lived above the confines of that wheelchair. She did so because she did not believe it could hold her back from being all that He had created her to be. Whatever we believe our limitations to be, real or imagined, in Christ, we too can rise above them by the power of His risen life within us. We who are in Christ have been given that life. It remains for us to fully receive it. We then live in the power of a life that cannot be destroyed. The final enemy of all humans is death. For the people of God, that enemy has been fully conquered. The same power that raised Him from the dead lives in you. Can you believe that? Can you live that?

Blessings,
Pastor O