![]() On Friday August, 31, 2012, we resumed our Friday Fellowship and Prayer meetings after a summer break. We took a brief rest at the rest stop to spend time with our families, to refocus and to refeul. And after our 2 month respite, The Sanctuary is back on the “Road to Purpose” and we have started our engines by igniting “The Power Within.” In our meeting on Friday we studied the book of Ephesians. We discovered that the purpose of Paul writing the books of Ephesians was to strengthen the Christians in the church of Ephesus. But we focused more on the 3rd chapter of Ephesians. This book contains one of the most popular and most used verses in the bible. Ephesians 3:20 “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding and abundantely all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in. While studying this I began to truly understand what this scripture really means. I am guilty of saying it to encourage myself and others, but after this study I truly understand how powerful it is. What I have come to understand through the lesson that I shared on Friday is that, without the power of God woking in you, there is no victory, there is no overcoming. We must understand unless we tap into the true pure power of God we will not have victory. To tap into the true power of God we must know that there are four main sources and they are: 1. The word of God. 2. Denying your self. 3. A consistent prayer life. 4. The name of Jesus. But to tap into this power we have to understand fully what this power is. When God created us, he not only created us in his image but he breathed His breath in us, he breathed inside of us the Spirit of the Living God and that Spirit brings with it the DUNAMIS or explosive power of God and with that comes the power to bring change in your life. Dunamis is defined as: strength, power, ability; the power for performing miracles; moral power and excellence of soul; the power and influence which belong to riches and wealth; power and resources arising from numbers; power consisting in or resting upon armies, forces, hosts. Now doesn’t that definition describe and define our God? So I want you to really take time to understand this, that when God blew His own breath into our nostrils, He not only breathed in life but He also breathed in His POWER. That means that Dunamis power is within you and me and it’s from God. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is resident in each of us. Often times on this journey of discovery, I long to use all the power that is resident in my body. Yet I'm still learning how to control, ignite and use this incredible gift. This gift of God’s power allows us to go from human to spirit and from spirit to human in an instance. And we must learn how to control this power within. We need to learn how and when to shift from human to spirit. It’s sort of like driving a manual (straight-drive) car. I know when my father taught me how to drive a straight drive he told me to listen to the engine in the car; it will tell you when to shift. And this can be applied here. If we are reading God’s word, praying and listening to the Holy Spirit, we will be instructed on when to shift. Where we have failed is either staying in the spirit to long or staying in the natural to long. We must be constantly listening for the leading of the Holy Spirit to know when to shift so that we do not burn out the clutch! So we possess this Dunamis power. Why do we not use it? In most cases people are not inclined to consider God to be that deep. We would rather lead simple uneventful lives being content in the mundane. We must realize that we were never created for mundane simple uneventful lives and we cannot become content living in the mundane. We were created in God's image and likeness….God's life or existence is anything but ordinary or mundane. We must stop seeing life through these ordinary eyes and see it from the extraordinary gift that is within us. Only then can we really appreciate and understand the true nature of God. God is amazing and we are amazing too. We have to realize our value and potential. Our value and potential is often times discovered when we experience as this quote by Bishop Mark Kariuki so eloquently stated, “Unless the pain of where you are is greater than the pain of change, you will never change” Simply put, when you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, you discover and realize that you are better than and worth more than your present circumstance and you muster the courage and strength to change your situation. This is when you discover the power within. So you discovered the power within, how do you ignite this power? This power is not ignited in the echelon of convenience and comfort. It is ignited in struggles, in pain, in sorrow, in the wilderness. But in today’s society if you struggle, people look down upon you as though something is wrong with you as though you brought these suffering upon yourself. However if you look at scripture, through the greatest pain and the greatest struggles that’s when God is glorified the most. Look at the life of Job, or let’s take a look at Apostle Paul. He spent a great amount of time in prison as he was persecuted for spreading the good news of the Gospel. But Paul counted it as a privilege and as an honor that God chose him to be a chosen vessel. In Ephesians 3:7-8, Paul expressed this, “By God’s grace and mighty power, I have been given the privilege of serving him by spreading this Good News. Though I am the least deserving of all God’s people, he graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ. “ Paul understood the power of self-denial! He also understood that to get through the struggles to activate the power within, you have to have a strong inner man. When Paul wrote the Book of Ephesians he wrote 6 books. And these books are sort of a road map or resource to living a life in the fullness of Christ…a purposeful life. Ephesians chapters 1 through 3 are about what we have in Christ, 4 through 6 gets into application. Ephesians 3 is where the transition takes place. He gives us instruction on how to turn on the engine. In Ephesian 3 Paul’s is first, revealing God’s mysterious plan and secondly he is praying for spiritual growth. In this prayer He says he is praying we would have a strong inner man. Ephesians 3:16 "I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being", A strong inner man is so important because the pressures, distresses, troubles and trials of life that come not only upon us but upon others can tear up the inner man and devastate us and steal our joy, peace and render us useless for service and witness. People, even Christians, demonstrate an inability to cope with life and all of its difficulties. And life can be a very painful experience and a weak inner man will result in doubt, fear, anxiety, distrust, sin, frustration, and mental strain, emotional and spiritual imbalance. The inner man is the eternal part, the real you, the spirit, the soul, what and who you are. And Paul is saying I want that strong. But the goal of the prayer is that we might experience verse 20, Ephesians 3:20 "Now unto Him that is able to do EXCEEDING ABUNDANTLY ABOVE all that we ask or think, according to the POWER that worketh in. This verse many of us have used, but do we truly know the meaning? Now we are about to turn the key and hear that powerful engine roar. He wanted us to come to the place where the power of God within us is doing things that exceed our imagination. Paul describes God’s work as “exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think.” The more he thinks upon God’s power, the more he is stunned. The combination of these two words ‘exceeding abundantly’ is considered as a super superlative. A super superlative is defined as of the highest kind, quality, or order; surpassing all else or others; supreme; extreme. Although Paul has asked much, God can and is willing to grant more. In order to appreciate Paul’s super-superlative we should look at Paul’s reasoning: “ God is able to do all we ask him to do; He is even able to do all that we dare not ask but merely imagine; He can do more than this; far more; very far more!” Doesn’t that take your mind into another place? Paul prays that a series of great truths, great spiritual realities will take place in our lives that will cause us to exude the power of God to those who don’t believe. And then he concludes with the ultimate goal in verse 21: Ephesians 3:21 “To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen” Paul is saying in this verse God is well deserving of the “glory in the church” based on His power, wisdom, mercy, love, grace, and so forth. We must understand that God’s ultimate purpose in the earth and with man is to bring glory to His Name. He wants to specially display to all His creatures His most wonderful character and ways. We must live for God’s glory and not our own. We need to decisively say to ourselves that our end goal is not to be a great man or woman of God, not to have a big or awesome church, to have all the wealth, status and riches. Our goal should be to bring glory to God. This study lesson has changed my life forever. I now have the “road map” and my engine has been "ignited" and I have turned the key. I am ready to take to the road. I have the road map to the purpose and plan for my life. My inner man has been serviced and I have the necessary tools just in case I break down. I have come to realize that I possess the dunamis power within me to change my life, my community and my world but the ultimate purpose of all this is so that God can do exceeding, abundantly more than I could ask or think so that His power that worketh within me may bring Him all the glory.
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