Seeking Power

Seeking Power 

by David Brenneman 

It's an interesting thing when you take the time to look at things from a different angle, a different perspective, than what you appear to be seeing.

The world is full of people seeking power over something or someone. Power over troubles in doing things, power over people who wield power over them. Seeking power to end someone from doing something. 

Luke 5:16 NASB "But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray."

Jesus, by His example, taught this to His Disciples, but it certainly looks like it was often missed until they wrote about it later. 

We often forget that our power to live life is found only in a right relationship with Jesus. 

We all will try, in some fashion, some way, to alter events, situations, to bring about what we have it in our minds and hearts to see.

"All of us, like sheep, have gone astray,

Each of us has turned to his own way;" Isaiah 53:6a NASB. 

We read in Genesis, of right before the Great Flood, that each man did what was right in their own eyes. Throughout the history of the children of Israel, we read of them turning away from the Lord to do what was right in their own eyes. 

People trying to gain an advantage, gain power and authority to really do one thing. Prove God wrong, to say that it's possible to have a good life without a relationship with Jesus. To create a paradise here on Earth.  To prove the word of God wrong. 

That's what sin does and what sin does in the hearts of every single person.

Sin promotes itself. Sin disbelieves God.

Jesus didn't seek His own will when He walked among us. He didn't even crush the demons He cast out.  He said that He didn't come to judge and He didn't. He cast no demons into Hell. He urged those who had sinned to turn away from it. When He returns, it will be to take those who have put their faith and trust in Him alone for salvation. THEN judgment is coming. 

Jesus often got away to be with His Father. He often spoke at length with Him. He was showing how the relationship ought to be between God and mankind. 

Jesus didn't throw around His power. He very well could have. He was tempted to by Satan.  

Jesus taught that every single moment of every single day ought to have measured, clear, responses that reflect the power of God in us. There's not an example that He gave that didn't show us how the character of Christ in us wasn't going to impact people around us. There's no vacation time away from the Christian life. There's no time in being His workmanship that the clay is ever told: "go ahead, do what you want for a while".

When the Disciples were taught to deny themselves, to take up their own cross and follow Him, Jesus meant for it to be for life.  We cannot know the mind of God without the Spirit of God in us. We cannot go about life seeking our own interests and avoiding what God's calling us to be and do in Him. 

When we try to create this world into our own image we will find it empty and maybe will look back and have the wisdom to see that it was in vain. 

Seek first what? His kingdom and His righteousness. His kingdom has all the authority and power to live life as He intended us to live. 

We will find disappointment after disappointment if we are only living for self. What does go on? What does last?

"The grass withers, the flower fades,

But the word of our God stands forever." Isaiah 40:8 NASB.

We only, maybe, learn too little too late that we wasted life not recognizing that God's way was better, that His way was right and true.  That our striving was as the writer of Ecclesiastes said...striving after the wind.  Our lives are filled with watching people leave behind belongings and watching legacies wither.  Millions of storage units every day are sold off because people died and left a mess for someone else to clean up.  Their efforts to create the world into their own image a failure. 

Jesus sought the power to live life in His relationship with His Father and nowhere else. Where are you seeking yours?  What are you leaning on to live life?  Are you trying to spend your time, energy and effort to create a world around you that is your idea of paradise?  

It is something to consider. Is what you pursue in your life bringing you into a deeper relationship with Jesus?  That's Jesus's example in how He related to His Father. He didn't take up His power until after His resurrection. He set it aside to obey His Father's will.  Everything He did was in obedience to His Father’s will. 

The seeking of power of a person over someone else or a group of people is futile.  The seeking of fulfilling self is futile.  

Reread Isaiah in what it said about the word of God stands forever.  Part of that word is His will being done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Part of that is His will for us in Christ Jesus, to be transformed into the image of Christ Jesus. Part of that is our sanctification. 

The Holy Spirit isn't some power cell to enable us to do what we want when we want it.  He's another of the same kind as Jesus. The 3rd person in the Trinity.  He's working towards the same end goal of making each Believer more like Christ. 

Is a right relationship with Jesus important to you? Is understanding and obeying the word of God important to you?

Are you pursuing your will to be done in your life or God's will to be done in your life?  

Set your mind on things above not on the things that are of this world.