The Power of Christ for All Things

We need Jesus for the mundane. We need the power of the Holy Spirit for the dishes, the bedtimes, the weekly routines. We need Jesus for our attitudes. We need Jesus for our time management. We need Jesus for our television viewing. We need Jesus for our play. We need Jesus for our conflicts. We need Jesus for our marriage. We need Jesus for our retirement. We need Jesus in singleness. We need Jesus for evangelism. We need Jesus for our jobs. We need Jesus for our waking and our sleeping. We need Jesus for our living and our dying. We need Jesus in victory and we need him in defeat. We need Jesus for our belief and unbelief. We desperately, desperately need Jesus for everything at all times. The good news is as Christians we HAVE Jesus.

 Lately, God has been teaching me how greatly I need Jesus for all of life, and to be honest with you it has not been an easy lesson to learn. He is teaching me what I’ve known in my head, but not always believed in my heart: That I can do nothing apart from Christ, but in Him I can do all things. I find that my biggest problem is attempting to live this life I’ve been given in my own effort. My unbelief in Christ is revealed by my attempts to walk as a Christian through my own efforts. I think He is teaching me what it means to be poor in spirit and how to walk by His Spirit.

In a few of Pastor Joe’s sermons recently he has expressed how the Apostle Paul prayed for the New Testament churches continuously. Continuously! Paul knew from his own conversion experience that what the churches needed, only God could provide. This is what it means to be “poor in Spirit” to believe that I, and all other created things, have zero ability to provide what I truly need for living, but God has provided what I truly need in Christ.  Paul was poor in spirit, and it drove him to pray continuously. As Paul E. Miller in his book A Praying Life writes, “You don’t need self-discipline to pray continuously; you just need to be poor in spirit.” (pg. 54)

I cannot attain or sustain Christian growth through effort, Christian growth is imparted to me by faith in Christ. This is what it means to walk by the Spirit.

When I fail to see growth in the fruit of the Spirit in my own life, I’m tempted to try to attain Christian growth in my own effort. Ever tried to be more disciplined in your “spiritual walk?” I have and when I do I can greatly relate with this C.S. Lewis quote: “No man knows how bad he is until he tries to be good.” God did not save us in Christ so that we can now walk by our own effort. We walk through union with Christ the Vine. Our union with the Vine began by grace through faith, and it will continue by grace through faith.

Our union with Christ is to be a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, not of our discipline, knowledge and cleverness.

1 Corinthians 4:20 – “For the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power.” 

1 Corinthians 1:30 “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.”

By God’s doing I am in Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus became my sanctification. This is why Paul tells the churches to walk by the Spirit. Walking by the Spirit is living in the reality of what God has done and is doing through the finished work of Christ. Paul calls the Church in Colossae to revisit their conversion in order to learn how to walk by the Spirit. Were we helpless? Broken? In need of saving? Under conviction by the Holy Spirit for our sin? Convinced that there was nothing we could do to change ourselves? Calling out to God for forgiveness, help and mercy? Receiving Christ by faith? Experiencing the grace of God’s love? Paul says, "Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him,"- Colossians 2:6

Consider this quote by Pastor Dane Ortlund, “The Lord Jesus above, to whom you are united, is not asking for you to scramble along on your hamster wheel of anxieties today. He is asking you to collapse into his open arms and then stumble your way forward with his own mighty arm around you.”

We have received Christ by faith and now we are called to walk by faith. Yes, we desperately, desperately, need Jesus. The good news is that we HAVE Jesus.

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." – Romans 15:13

Persevere,
Joey Turner 
Pastor of Student Ministry