“Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:24, NLT)
Picture the sun rising on a beautiful, clear morning. We see it slowly peeking out over the horizon. As time passes it becomes more noticeable, the heat increases, the light becomes stronger until it is fully visible, a ball of light casting its intense glow over everything. The earth awakens each day to this light; plants grow and life is sustained. In much the same way, the Son rises in our hearts. We accept him into our lives and he progressively overcomes the darkness of our old lives, lives without him and full of self. As bits of this darkness are forced away through our increasing knowledge of him, the Son blazes forth, in ever greater intensity, into our everyday lives. We become partners with him as we become more and more aware of his power in us.
I believe the Bible calls us to this progression of experienced power when it says, “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5:14, NIV). We see in this verse a wonderful promise of seeing Jesus Christ work in and through our lives and circumstances. And when Christ shines on the life of the believer, things happen!
Our focus here is on spiritual power. There are many kinds of power: secular, political, physical, informational, and even personal. However spiritual power, God’s power imparted to us by Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, trumps all other power whether it be earthly power or other supernatural power.
The Son-powered life is Christ, the power of God, living in and through us. However, knowing this fact and experiencing the reality of that relationship are two different things. The Son-powered life begins at the moment of spiritual birth and develops as we cultivate our relationship with Christ. We learn to trust Christ daily to live his life in and through us.
As we grow in our relationship with Christ Jesus we experience not only more and more of him, but more and more of his love and power and grace in our daily lives. And as we experience more and more of Jesus in our lives, we also can start to happily experience less and less of self. In the book of John we read these words spoken by John the Baptist, “He must become greater
and greater, and I must become less and less” (John 3:30, NLT). This process can take place without us noticing, but eventually we should see evidence of this occurring in our lives as we cultivate our relationship with Christ. This is literally the power of Christ beginning to permeate our entire life.
The object of our faith is critical. If we trust in the power of self to live the Christian life, we will fail. Self is always ultimately powerless. Self relies on the old “try harder self-effort” model and is intent on meeting the demands of the law through works. We try and try to do and be what God wants, but unfortunately, the flesh is incapable of satisfying the perfect, exacting demands of the law. However, when Christ is the object of our faith, we trust him to live his life in us and we accept his power to achieve it. As we learn to become less and less, Jesus Christ becomes more and more.
What is currently happening in your life because of Son Power?
Son Power is all about you becoming less and less and Christ becoming more and more.