Apicontent

“I [Jesus] say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” (John 5:24, NKJV)

All things related to our relationship with God begin with spiritual birth. Jesus tells us each person must be “born again” (John 3:5). Those who believe and trust in Jesus Christ, God’s Son, experience spiritual birth. Have you taken this important first step? Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and asked him to be the Lord of your life? If so, you are a part of the family of God! If not, take time right now to go to (LINK TO “BEGIN YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD”) for more information on making this important decision.

Believing and trusting in Jesus enables us to have the relationship with God that he desires to have with each one of his children. This step allows Jesus to give us access to the Son-powered life. It is impossible for a lamp to produce light on its own without having a proper relationship with a source of power. Likewise, a mirror gives light only when it receives light from another source. In both of these examples, a right relationship with a power source is non-negotiable. If we want to be reflecting the Son and his power in our daily lives, we must have a right relationship with the power source, Jesus Christ. That right relationship is only achieved by becoming a member of God’s family by receiving and trusting in Jesus Christ as one’s personal Lord and Savior. This is called salvation, saved from one life and given another with an alternate power source.

It is critical that we have a proper understanding of what our salvation in the person of Jesus Christ really accomplishes. God, the Father, has “qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:12–14, ESV).

Our eternal salvation is a done deal. The Father has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness. He has transferred us to the kingdom of his Son in whom we accomplished without our help. I find it interesting to note that each one of these verbs is in the past tense. I believe this indicates that because of those actions, we experience a paradigm shift. Yes, we are still in this world, but we are now living with a new identity. We are under a different law, the law of faith which gives us the law of life in the Spirit of Christ Jesus.

Furthermore, Paul tells us that we are sealed by the Holy Spirit of God: “In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13, NKJV).

We are secure in a new relationship with the King of Kings. Christ himself purged our sins. It is a finished work that he has done on our behalf. The Father and Jesus took care of our sin problem. We trust in Jesus alone for our salvation. He daily saves us from the foolishness of trusting in ourselves. In truth, we are “signed, sealed, and delivered” for shipment to the kingdom of God. In the same way that we trust in Jesus Christ’s power on the cross for our salvation, we must trust him for power through the Holy Spirit to live each day in the life he has designed for us.

Have you trusted in Jesus Christ’s power on the cross for your salvation? Are you trusting in Jesus to daily give you the Holy Spirit’s power?

Son Power begins with a relationship with God through his Son, Jesus Christ.

“Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.” (Galatians 5:25, NLT)

When we accept the life God has for us through a relationship with Jesus Christ, everything changes. The Holy Spirit begins to work in us to transform our lives. Without this work, there is no capacity for living a Son-powered life. The Holy Spirit is the game changer. He is the great enabler. It is he who generates in us the power to live the life God has planned for us. A relationship with Jesus is just the beginning, each one of us needs to be empowered by the Holy Spirit as well.

When Jesus was on earth, he told his disciples he needed to physically leave them in order for them to receive the Holy Spirit who would help them and teach them. John recorded this for us, “But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you” (John 14:26, NLT)

The Holy Spirit comes to live in the heart of every believer, “And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, ‘Abba, Father’” (Galatians 4:6, NLT). We are made alive by the Holy Spirit, and with him working in our lives we have a God-given desire to have a living relationship with the Father.

The Holy Spirit shows us that trusting in self-effort is a dead end. I like to think of self-effort as a dependence on my “three amigos.” The amigos are “Me, Myself and I.” We need to say goodbye to those friends and trust completely in Christ to live his life in us on a daily basis. Our human nature is totally rooted in self-effort and the fixation of our culture is on self-accomplishment. “Look at me, look at all I’ve done!”

A relationship with Jesus changes all of that. We realize that God has a plan for our lives and he will give us the strength to accomplish his purposes. The Holy Spirit is at work in and through us. It is his job to reveal things to us as we grow in our relationship with God. We rely on his strength. When that happens, the lights turn on, the engines rev up, the Son rises with power in our heart, and we begin to experience a life that is transformed. When we use our spiritual eyes, we can see the fingerprints of God all around us.

How does this happen? We have been identified with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection so that we can serve in the new life of the Spirit (see Romans 7:6). We have Christ, the power of God living inside of us! Our entire perspective is changed. We now focus on God’s desires and the Spirit’s power to accomplish his desires through us.

In what areas of your life do you tend to depend on the “three amigos” (me, myself and I)? What one step can you take to start allowing the Holy Spirit to empower you?

Son Power is generated by the Holy Spirit.

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1–2, NKJV).

As believers, we have been transferred permanently into the kingdom of God’s Son. We now live under a totally different law, the law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ. We are no longer under the law of sin and death as long as we walk according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh. This is a totally different paradigm than the system under the Old Testament law.

What we are talking about here is a new world with a different set of rules and laws, a world that we experience while in our earthly existence. The law of the spirit of life in Jesus Christ now rules in our relationship with God, and not the Old Testament law comprised of the law of sin and death. We are still under a law, but a different law powered and sourced in the person of Jesus Christ through his Holy Spirit. The law of Moses could not save us because our flesh (or self) did not have the power to meet its demands. The law’s purpose was to show us we needed a Savior. Because Christ satisfied the requirements of the law for us by paying the penalty for our sin through his sacrifice in our place, we now have a right standing with God as a gift from him.

We are now identified with Christ in his resurrection. When we accept Christ’s work on the cross, we are raised with him from the dead and our spirit is given new life. The law of the Spirit in which we now live enables us to serve God in a new way. We have died to the law and have been delivered from it so that we can live in the newness of the Spirit.

The Old Testament law represents the impossible, what we need to do to please God and come into his good graces. The work of Jesus Christ eliminates all of that. We come to God now because of what Christ did for us on the cross. It is totally because of God’s grace that we no longer need to rely on self. This, to me, represents the difference between darkness and light. It is self-effort versus the power of Christ who works in us. We simply live our life in response to God’s grace, and that my friends, gives us freedom.

The Son-powered life is a life possessed by the Holy Spirit of God, controlled by him, and empowered by him. It is only available to us as we trust in him. When we fail to avail ourselves of this life, we become oblivious to what God wants to do through us.

Once we meet his conditions of waking up and rising from the deadness of the prison of self, his light will be on us. And when Christ shines on us with his favor, we will grow in our relationship with God and be in a position to harness his power to bless those around us.

In what ways are you living your life in response to God’s grace?

Son Power is available to you only as you trust in God.

“If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” (1 John 1:9, NLT)

Why does it seem that so often we are powerless to accomplish great things for God? I believe it is because there are barriers that keep us from experiencing God’s power through the Holy Spirit.

I’ve heard that Seattle, Washington is a beautiful place to live. But I’ve also heard that Seattle’s weather can be downright depressing. When the skies are clear, the weather is beautiful. However, fog is common and often dense and it rains 50 percent of the time. It’s actually been recorded that 239 days of the year Seattle is covered by heavy clouds. There are physical barriers that are blocking out the effects of the sun. The sun is there, shining brightly, but the fog and clouds are obscuring it.

I believe that Son Power is also obscured in our lives at times by things that present barriers to our seeing and experiencing that power. One thing that keeps Son Power from operating in our life is sin.

It is important to understand sin and to deal with it. The Bible tells us that God created humans perfect and in his image: “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27, NLT). God gave Adam and Eve meaningful work to do and told them the only thing they couldn’t do was eat the fruit of one tree, but they decided to take matters into their own hands and, as a result, sin came into the world. You can read all this in Genesis 2 and 3; Adam and Eve’s choice to do things their own way brought sin into our lives as well as their own.

Because of Adam and Eve, all of us have inherited a sinful nature, and it affects every part of us. There is only one person in the history of the world who did not have a sin nature: Jesus Christ. He was the “holy, righteous one” (Acts 3:14, NLT) who “never sinned” (2 Corinthians 5:21, NLT). This allowed Jesus to be sacrificed on the cross as our perfect substitute, “the sinless, spotless Lamb of God” (1 Peter 1:19, NLT). It is through receiving Christ’s sacrifice that we are born again and begin a new life in him: “Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NLT).

The whole idea of sin is very unpopular these days, even in some churches. But the reason Jesus came into the world was to save us from our sins! Sin is alive and well and we must honestly own it and confess it. We cannot expect to experience God’s power in our lives when we choose to sin because sin always short-circuits the work of the Holy Spirit. The prophet Isaiah said, “Listen! The Lord’s arm is not too weak to save you, nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call. It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore” (Isaiah 59:1–2, NLT).

Sin manifests itself in all kinds of ways in our lives; pride, envy, self-righteousness, the list goes on and on. The difficulty is in recognizing our sin and confessing it as such. It is important that we learn to detect the voice of the sinful nature. The Holy Spirit takes up residence in each believer and supplies the power we need to overcome the pull of the sin nature within us.

We need to confess our sin to God so our relationship with him can be restored immediately. It is through the confession of our sin that we are telling God that we want to have our relationship with him restored, and it is then that the Holy Spirit will empower us to do God’s work. Be honest with yourself. Are you stuck in a painful past? God’s healing is available to you! Are you stuck in a painful present? God’s power is available to you! Get sin out of the way!

Take time todayto confess your sin to God and begin to experience the Holy Spirit’s power in a new way.

Son Power can be blocked by your sin.

“My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20, NLT)

Years ago, I was in a group experience where we were challenged to have a three-minute conversation without anyone using the words “me, my, or I” … we couldn’t do it! Unfortunately, each one of us has an innate desire to think about ourselves. This self-centered thinking, the “big I,” needs to be broken.

It takes Son Power to remove the control of self. This power becomes operative in our lives when we ask the Holy Spirit, by faith, to take control of how we think, feel, and act. We must learn to trust in the power of God alone to empower us and deliver us.

Dying to self is painful, but God has promised that he will manifest himself in us. In Proverbs we read these words, “For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the Lord” (8:35, NLT).

If we are to find favor with God and experience the Son-powered life, we must die to self along the pathway of life: self-reliance, self-trust, self-sufficiency, independence. All qualities the world values and encourages.

Jesus said: “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives. Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.” (John 12:24–25, NLT).

In order for a grain of wheat to multiply it must die. Our time, talent, treasure, and desire must be given up totally to God to be used for his world and his glory. If we just spend it on pleasuring ourselves, then we are missing the best that God has for us. Only when we die to self will God be able to multiply all that we are and all that we have.

An important KingdomNomics principle is that as we progressively die to desiring the perishable values of this world, we will find the desire to invest in the imperishable values of the kingdom. God’s priorities will become our priorities. We will also experience God’s favor and his abundant life.

I have found these two verses in the book of Psalms to be critical as I keep my eyes on God’s will and not my own: “Surely, Lord, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield” (5:12, NIV). “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless” (84:11, NIV).

In what ways is your self-reliance, self-trust, self-sufficiency, independence keeping you from truly experiencing Son Power?

Son Power requires that you die to self.

“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” (Psalm 119:105, NLT)

Many people make the mistake of thinking that knowledge is enough to experience the presence and power of God. However, such a belief will short-circuit the Son Power in our lives. We need to remember the Hebrews wandering in the wilderness who had knowledge, but no purpose. “For this good news … has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn’t share the faith of those who listened to God” (Hebrews 4:2, NLT).

Is the Word of God important to you? Are you spending time regularly reading it, memorizing it, and putting it into practice? In order to have Son Power operative in our lives, we must commit ourselves to the study of God’s Word. Our knowledge must move from our head to our heart in the form of conviction that impacts our faith and behavior. Failure to do so will certainly make our lives barren and unproductive. The knowledge that we gain from reading God’s Word must translate into some type of action.

However, when we immerse ourselves in God’s Word, we position ourselves to hear God’s voice. We must hear the Word of God, we must accept the Word of God, and we must live the Word of God. It is only through this process that we will experience Son Power and become seeds that produce a hundredfold.

I have had many experiences in my life when God has revealed his will for my life through his Word. When I immerse myself in that Word, I find that God works in me and through me. Scripture is either true or it’s not … it will either make a difference or it will not.

What Scriptures are important to you? What you learn from God’s Word about who he is, about his will, about his character, and about how he works will greatly affect how you experience the Holy Spirit in your life. You must take all that you have learned from God’s Word and apply it to your life circumstances.

What steps are you taking on a daily basis to ensure that you have a biblical knowledge of God that results in living for him?

Son Power is experienced when you hear the Word of God,

accept the Word of God, and live the Word of God.

“The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.” (Psalm 28:7, NLT)

There are Christian individuals who are not experiencing a Son-powered life because of their refusal to surrender to God’s will. This is what is often referred to as being a “carnal” Christian, one who is still influenced a great deal by the world and its enticements. This principle comes from the King James version of 1 Corinthians 3:1: “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.” The NIV puts it this way, “Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ,” and the New Living Translation says, “Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ.”

The bottom line? A carnal Christian is someone who has accepted the good news of Jesus Christ, but does not want to be transformed by it. To become a Son-powered person, it takes an affirmative act of the will to choose to have the Holy Spirit control how we think, feel, and act. We shut off his power when we refuse to let him do so. It takes surrender of self.

Let’s review Galatians 2:20: “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (NLT, emphasis added).

In order to have Christ living in us we must allow Jesus Christ to take control of us. We must submit to him. Our life revolves around the Son. He lives in us. He is the source of the renewable Son-powered life. He must increase and we must decrease. The power of the Son is unlimited, and he can overcome the mountain of self in our lives when we allow him to do so.

What often keeps you from surrendering to God?

Son Power requires surrendering to God’s will.

A Wish or a Goal?

“One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me.” (Philippians 3:13–14, NIV)

Wow! Take a look at the powerful verbs in the verses above: forgetting, straining, press on, win. To me, these words all seem to imply some kind of intentionality. Intentionality to do something, intentionality to pursue, intentionality to focus our time, talent, and treasure. As you consider your desire for experiencing Son Power, is it fueled by this type of intentionality? Is your desire a wish or is it actually a goal that you are willing to pursue? Are you simply thinking about the power of God in your life, or are you truly positioning yourself to experience it?

The very fact that you are taking the time to read this devotional seems to indicate that you have more than a simple wish to experience the power of the Holy Spirit working in you and through you. But the question still remains: Do you truly have a desire to experience the Holy Spirit working in your life?

I’ve met many people who have wishes for their lives. They are waiting for something to happen. To me, a true desire is something we are willing to work for.

I am not talking here about earning God’s favor. I am addressing the need for each one of us to develop a yearning in our hearts for God’s presence and power to actively empower us; a longing that results in us seeking after God. It is an intentionality that sets us on the course for pursuing God. Yogi Berra, the renowned baseball player and coach once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”

When we have a true desire to experience Son Power, we know where we are going. We set our hearts and minds and lives on a path that will take us to our goal.

Honestly, is your desire to experience Son Power a wish or a goal?

Son Power is fueled by a yearning in your heart to experience God’s presence.

“For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” (Hebrews 4:12, NLT)

We can’t grow in our relationship with God, through the Son, or experience the Holy Spirit, without the Word of God. In order for our lives to echo into eternity we need to embrace what the Bible tells us about who God is and how he works. Our entire being is wrapped up in Christ Jesus and what he did for us on the cross. Our desire for the Holy Spirit comes from Jesus and is fueled by Jesus, and we learn about all of this from God’s Word.

Just as it is impossible to grow physically without physical food, it is impossible to grow spiritually without the food of the Word of God. When you plant God’s Word in your heart it will accomplish everything that God wants to develop and grow in you. It will actually prosper in your heart. How do I know this? Because God’s Word promises it! “It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it” (Isaiah 55:11, NLT).

I love to play with words. During my devotional time one day, I placed two words side by side: WORLD    WORD

It occurred to me that each of these words is promoting a message.  The world wants us to embrace its message of “Me, Myself, and I.” This message is in direct opposition to what God’s Word has to say to us. God’s Word is a story of sacrifice and giving. We must make a choice as to which message we are going to listen to and obey.

As I sat looking at those two words, I realized that if you drop the “l” out of world you have word. I thought to myself, The “l” stands for what I am living for in this life. I need to take that “l” of the world and move it under the Word, bringing what I am living for in this world into submission to the Word of God.

In the Old Testament we read, “Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God’s mercies” (Jonah 2:8. NLT). The world has a lot of “false gods” to offer. If you Google the term “false gods,” Wikipedia actually says they are “other competing entities or objects to which particular importance is attributed.” There are many things in this world that have the power to turn our hearts away from God. False gods include money, possessions, success, school, careers, friends, and even family. Tim Keller, in Counterfeit Gods, defines a false god this way: “Anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.”

And so, each one of us has a choice to make each day. Are we going to follow the pathway of the world or walk in the way God’s Word directs us? Are we going to allow false gods to steal our allegiance or are we going to stay true to the God of the Bible? Are we going to take our directions from the world manual or the Word manual? What is our true desire?

In what ways are you letting the world guide your life? In what ways is God’s Word giving you direction?

Son Power is grounded in God’s Word.

“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:1–3, NLT)

God’s Word gives us direction as we soak our heart in it and then sow it to the Spirit when we recite it as we talk with God about it. We then activate Son Power by an act of our will when we choose to flow with the Spirit in our daily walk with God. At that point, he begins to impart his life in us as we depend on him.

As we soak and sow, God responds and swings into action by allowing the Son to rise in our hearts to transform us: “And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image” (2 Corinthians 3:18, NLT). Note that the Spirit does the changing, not us. We are changed by his transforming power being released in us, freeing us more and more from the self-life and empowering us to do his will. When we do our part by positioning ourselves properly in relationship to God and his Word, he will do the rest. His Word flows through us.

Technology today presents to us many different options for “virtual reality” experiences. But what people really want is a real experience with God. Virtual reality is a “near to real” experience, but God offers us his very real presence. We experience him in our lives when we cooperate with him. The Old Testament tells us that he “rides across the heavens to help you” (Deuteronomy 33:26, NLT) and he “makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind” (Psalm 104:3, NIV). Those are very real words with very real power.

This is reality! As we embrace the Son-powered life, our desire for investing in the imperishable values of the kingdom will increasingly trump our desires for the perishable values of this fading world system as we experience the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit.

Without God’s Word operating in our lives, we will be unfruitful. God has given us his Word to empower us to live the Son-powered life. However, we must choose to take advantage of his provision for doing so. Experiencing Son Power requires time and commitment. We want an easy way, but there is no easy way to take time to really know God’s Word. We begin by taking the time to hear what is being said.

Most of what we have discussed so far in this book is the opportunity to live a Son-powered life. We have been hearing what God’s Word has to say regarding this subject. However, God tells us that each person needs to make a choice regarding what they are hearing. We cannot simply hear God’s Word; we must decide what we are going to do with it. And so, we must go on to accept what is being said to us by the Lord if it is going to make any difference in our lives at all. Many people hear what is being said, but it goes no further than their ears. Each one of us must accept the message if it is to produce fruit. The message moves from the believer’s head to their heart by an active choice in their will to the point that it impacts their entire belief system, birthing a desire to make something out of it. Once that occurs, God does the rest.

We need to receive instruction from God’s Word and store those words in our hearts in order for the Son-powered life to be operative. We talk to the Father in accordance with his will as we have soaked our heart in his Word. As we flow with the Spirit in our daily lives, we become aware of God’s direction and power working inside of us and in our circumstances. Practicing what has been revealed to us in God’s Word results in spiritual growth, a growth rooted and grounded in Christ.

In what ways are you experiencing Son Power? If you are not, what changes do you need to ask God to help you make?

Son Power requires that you receive instruction from God’s Word.