CALLING ON OMNIPOTENCE IN MY IMPOTENCE

I woke up this morning feeling utterly inadequate and impotent with the attempt to rebuild my life, plant a church, and live above my circumstances. This is an all to familiar place for me in my life to be. I have developed an aversion to inadequacy and impotency. I do not like being helpless at all. All of my life I have worked to maintain at least an illusion to myself and others that I am not helpless. By nature I have been a high achiever, a self sufficient loner, very self disciplined, highly ambitious, in control, a planner, a success driven striver. I always made sure my ducks were lined up and that I had alternatives to my alternatives to fix and solve any problem that I had. It has taken me thirty eight years of being a Christian to learn that before God I am truly helpless.

The truth is that if we are really honest with ourselves,, we are always inadequate. Our Lord said so in John 15:6, "Apart from Me, you can do nothing." This statement and believing it are foundational to understanding the kind of person who will be most used by God. Life, in fact, is too much for us. This business of living in awareness and response to God, to live for His glory, to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, to live in caring attentive love to the people around us, and to do that for 70 to 80 years with joy and perseverance, utterly exceeds our capacities. We aren't smart enough; we don't have enough energy; we can't concentrate adequately. We are unbelieving, apathetic, fragile, weak, and fickle.

Not all the time, to be sure. We have spurts of love, passion, risks of faith, moments of heartfelt caring, and extraordinary courage; but invariably we slip back into laziness, dullness, unbelief, selfishness, or greed. That is why a ruthless honesty before God and ourselves will always leave us shattered by our inadequacy.There is an enormous gap between what we think we can do and what God calls us to do. As long as I think that God calls me to do only what I think I can do (i.e.control, manipulate, contain, play it within my own self made safety nets) I am fine. In short, as long as I live within the confines within my own self imposed limitations and abilities all is well. But what happens when your ideas of what we can do or want to do are small and trivial in comparison to God's idea of what He can do in and through us! That is where we often times get afraid, doubting, discouraged, and feel hopeless.

God does not call us to do only what we can do, He calls us to do what He can do! Christianity is supernatural or it is nothing!!!!! Jesus says in John 15:5-6, ""As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." Do you hear that? Do you believe that? It will either bring you to utter discouragement in your pride or draw you to his supernatural help.

I am motivated to come to God because of the reality and the deep conviction that I am completely helpless to do my life on my own. I have come to see that my impotency, my helplessness, my weakness, my brokenness, and my neediness is a precious gift from God, because this is the place that releases the true flow of God's omnipotent power, strength, and grace in my life and ministry and it will be the same for you. God knows where His power and glory thrive and where it is diminished

Oh the promises in the bible to what He wants to do to us, for us, in us, and through us! God's ideas for us are divine, supernatural, extraordinary, and utterly disproportionate to who we are! What God desires to do is to intersect divine omnipotence with our impotence and together produce extraordinary miraculous and supernatural lives.

Listen to these promises and reach out to believe them over your life!

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
Romans 8:31-32

For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory
2 Corinthians 1:20

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews 4:16

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us
Ephesians 3:20

"Nothing is impossible with God"
Luke 1:37

When you understand this extraordinary God and the extraordinary work that He desires to do through your working you can begin praying a bold prayer prayer like this: “Lord, let me make a difference for you that is utterly disproportionate to who I am". Bold prayers like this honor God, and God honors bold prayers. God is not offended by your biggest dreams and boldest prayers. He is offended by anything less. If your prayers are not impossible to you, they are insulting to God. Why? Because they don't require divine intervention.But ask God to do the miraculous and God is moved to omnipotent action. Ask God to move His omnipotence over your life. Ask God to do something utterly disproportionate to who you are. The greatest moments of your life are supernatural, miraculous moments.

There is nothing that our supernatural God likes more than keeping promises, answering prayers, helping his beloved children, and performing miracles. that is who He is and what He does. So this is how I desire to pray each and every day of my life. This is a prayer that any one of you who feel passionless, loveless, weak, inadequate, can pray boldly without fear of presumption.The wording of the prayer contains a disclaimer: "I am not great. But you, Lord, are very great. So in your astonishing sovereignty and glorious omnipotence and according to your mighty promises you can flood little, inadequate, impotent me with love, passion, and power and let my little life make a difference far beyond all my little powers. Let my little timid prayers be expanded into big sweeping prayers like these:

Lord, I have heard of your fame;I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known
Habakkuk 3:1-2

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil,come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him
Isaiah 64:1-4

O Lord, there is none like you to help, between the mighty and the weak. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude. O Lord, you are our God; let not man prevail against you.
2 Chronicles 14:11

GOD WILL DO FOR YOU WHAT ONLY GOD CAN DO.
GOD IS FOR YOU
GOD WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE THAT SO THAT YOU BEGIN PRAYING BIG SWEEPING PRAYERS OVER YOUR LIFE AND OTHERS
"GOD DO SOMETHING DISPROPORTIONATE TO WHO WE ARE"

Jesus is not asking you and me to do anything that He is not already doing and cannot do. He is inviting us into His life of helpless impotent dependence upon our heavenly Father. To become more like Jesus is to feel more and more that you cannot do life. The very thing we often times try to escape, our own helplessness, becomes the launch pad to prayer and then to God's omnipotent supernatural help and grace.

Calling for God to do things that only He can do!
Pastor Bill