Whispers

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

The smallest voice can have the greatest power, but only if we humble ourselves and listen.

Power Sources

When you are starting your car, it is completely electric. The power from the battery turns the starter motor and tells the fuel injectors to spray fuel and powers the spark plugs to spark and cause a little explosion. That little explosion pushes the pistons which drive the crank which is connected to your transmission and your alternator. When that explosion causes the alternator to spin, a radical change occurs. The alternator takes over the electrical side of things. It powers the fuel injectors and the spark plugs and starts to recharge the battery. From this moment on your car is no longer powered by the battery, it is powered by little gasoline explosions. (Unless you have a hybrid, which means this transition happens only on the highway.)

After the little automotive lesson, there is a good chance you are asking, So What?

Much like the car, the source of power for things in our life changes. There are times when we are electric and times when we are gas powered. There are things in our life that only have power because we give it to them. Without the battery (or some pushing and clutch-poping), that gasoline engine is worthless.

In 1 Cor 10 Paul writes about food sacrificed to idols. He points out that idols are nothing. They are powerless. Unless we give them power.

All of the idols in our world sit idle (pun!) like that internal-combustion engine until we give them power. We give them attention, we give them effort, we give them life by diverting our attention from where it should be. Little by little we let them grow and consume us, becoming more and more important to how we see ourselves, what we think will make us happy, where we hope to find contentment.

Paul writes, "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons." Our attention, our focus, our devotion must be only on God, since he is, after all, the source of our power. While we may think we have successfully compartmentalized our lives and found a place for God and a place for work and a place for family and a place for hobbies, we've really just excluded God. He doesn't want a place; He's too big for that. He doesn't want part; He demands all.

"Are we trying to arouse the Lord's jealousy? Are we stronger than he?"

Knowing v.

Knowledge is power.

Knowing is half the battle.

Knowledge alone is nothing.

Francis Bacon said the first and the second one is the famous ending of so many GI Joe public service announcements. The last one has been said before, but not nearly as much as the former two.

What good is just knowing? It doesn't make things different. It doesn't improve things. It doesn't fix things. It doesn't matter. Acquiring knowledge is easy. It is fun. Understanding a situation makes it seem like we can handle it, like we can deal with it - it puts us at ease. It changes nothing. It placates. It dulls. Knowledge is the opiate of the masses.

So, what then makes a difference?

Power and Control

Simon had power. He was a magician and he had followers. He had people who proclaimed his greatness. Then he heard Philip and he believed. He was baptized. It would be a nice story if Simon's whole self was radically changed. It would be clean and simple if he went under the water as Simon the Sorcerer and came up out of the water as Simon the perfect Christ-follower, devoid of the old desires and hang-ups that were such a part of his life.

That's not the way the story goes. Simon goes under the water Simon the Sorcerer and comes back up as Simon the guy who has a lot of work to do - just like all of us. Simon sees what appears to be the Apostles' power (really it was God's power) and Sorcerer Simon starts to speak up. He wants it. He wants what he used to have. He tries to take God's power and bend it to Sorcerer Simon's way of life. Simon tries to control God by buying His power with money so he can do what he wants with it. God doesn't play that game.

That's why we can't buy grace. That's why we can't earn it. That's why it can only be accepted as a free gift. If we buy it or barter for it or earn it, we control it and we haven't gained anything at all. What we need to do is surrender. That's the point of all of this - to put God back in control. To restore what was twisted.

Persistent Power

What happens when one power is threatened by another? How do people react when their power may be usurped or upended? How does the veteran react when the talented young rookie steals his starting spot? How does the CEO react when the board disagrees with him for the first time? How do parents react when their 18-year old makes a decision knowing they will disagree?

The Sadducees wrestled with the emergence of the power of Jesus. Every ruler of the time wrestled with the emergence of the power of Jesus. They rejected his power. They questioned his power. They forbid the mention of it. None of these things stopped it.

That's the thing with real power - you can't stop it. You can disagree all you want. You can fight all you want. Nothing will stop it.

No matter what we want or what we do, God's power is paramount. We think we have power, but in comparison it is just an illusion. We can claim our power, we can reject God's power, we can try to silence or ignore God, but in the end God will reign.

What doesn't happen in the world is the embrace of an external power. What doesn't existence in the world is the foundation of love in that new power. What doesn't happen in the world is the rejection of personal power.

If reject God's power, it will become the capstone. If we try to enforce silence from God's followers, the rocks will cry out. If we renounce our own power and rely only on God's power, He will gladly share it with us.

Luke 18 - Humility -> Justification

"God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

Why is it so hard for me to humiliate myself and look at who I am, a sinner. That doesn't preclude me from doing what God wants me to do, it doesn't define who I am. It is the place from which I must approach God. That is what he calls us to do, what we are called to recognize.

We are all lovingly created children of God. He knows each hair of our head and each thing we've done wrong, but he still loves us. This is why we can, no we must, approach Him from a place of humility. It is when we approach God from the place of feeling like we are nothing that we begin to rely on Him instead of on ourselves. That is where real strength and real power come from.

Luke 4 - Power

Jesus speaks and a demon is forced out of a man. That's power. On 24, the president (our symbol of power) speaks up against her capturer, a rogue foreign general. Her words aren't heeded, they only bring a slap to the face. In this situation, she's only brought words to a gun fight (that's more useless than a knife in this situation). The power of her words is limited. This is so contrary to Jesus, who shows unlimited power with His words.

I'm no president and I'm certainly no Jesus Jr. Yet, I sometimes think that my words have more power than God's. What do I mean by that? In certain situations I have trouble letting scripture stand alone. Why can't I just let it do it's work? Why must I constantly try to explain it to people? Do I trust my power more than God's? If the answer is no, why do I insist on using my words to explain His? The power of the Bible, its words, its narrative, its stories is more than enough.