I leave the restaurant where I often write in the mornings
frustrated. I didn’t get done what I set out to do. Clouds closed in overhead.
Problems I had pushed to the back of my mind assert themselves. Feeling a little overwhelmed and defeated, I get
in the car and the radio comes on. Jeremy
Camp’s, “Same Power” plays. It’s a song that commands you to listen.
I thought he must have
written it from Romans 8:11, “And if the Spirit of him who
raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead
will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in
you.”
Turns out he did. The song was birthed in him during a time of ministering in Kyrgyzstan under great opposition.
So, later in the day, I turn to this week’s
lesson in Breath, a study on the Holy
Spirit and our current women’s Bible Study by Beth Moore.
Though Beth does the video lectures, her
daughter Melissa Moore writes the workbook. She admits she’s been struggling with
a kind of apathy, but God shakes her with a realization of His power. I read these words, “As ones who are filled
with God’s Spirit, we must join God in speaking life and hope over this
decaying and despondent world. And we must accept and invite the words of life
and hope that are spoken over us by others. Further still, we must speak life
and hope over ourselves . . . The Spirit within us we received because God
raised Jesus from the dead.”
All of this is enough to shake the frustration
and defeat right out of you.
Soon, we will be celebrating Easter and reviewing again the story of Jesus’ resurrection. However, even now,
God is gently reminding me that the same power that brought Jesus back to life
lives in me by the power of His Holy Spirit.
Not some diluted version.
Not a facsimile.
Not the good on Sunday, won’t work on
Monday power, but the very same grave clothes shedding, stone rolling, cell igniting,
soul regenerating power that brought Jesus back from the dead.
So let’s buck up friends, because he’s
given us power. And back to Melissa’s words. Yeah, what she said. Let’s be
faithful to speak this over ourselves and others.
May your week before Holy week be a power filled one.
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fine art prints from an original oil of the state butterfly of Georgia, the
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. Click HERE to visit.