Turning On Your Engine: Internal Power

➡ Paul, the voiceover for a ministry called Your Daily Bread, encourages listeners to deepen their spiritual connection with Christ through daily devotions. The focus is on harnessing internal power, which is achieved by understanding and fulfilling certain elements of scripture. This power, according to Ephesians 3.20, allows believers to accomplish more than they can imagine. Paul urges listeners to not limit themselves, but to fully utilize the resources God provides, thereby glorifying God through their actions and achievements.

Hello, my name is Paul, and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God Is Government called Your Daily Bread, taken from Christ’s teaching of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, verse 11. This is a daily devotion ministry, focused not only on uplifting Scripture, but Scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly, advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today’s focused discussion will be turning on your engine, internal power. If you have been paying attention to the last devotions on this subject of turning on your engine, you should understand that the first four elements culminate into what allows you to drive your engine, the turning on the internal power.

When that happens, the explosion takes place, the engine is on, the blast is on. And in Ephesians 3.20 comes the great doxology, the great benediction, the great peen of anticipated praise, now unto him who is able to accomplish all that he would through you. Now that you have inner strength, now that you have the indwelling Christ, now that there’s incomprehensible love, now that you’re filled with internal fullness, the fullness of God, now he is able to do what? Exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.

That power doesn’t work in you until now, not until verse 20, until verses 17-19 have been fulfilled. Verse 16-19. The great doxology of praise, Jesus said in John 14.12, it’s all right when I go away, because when I go away you’ll do greater things than I did. Not greater in quality, you could never do things greater in quality. Greater in quantity is what that text is saying, we’ve studied it before. Greater in quantity, all around the world and over and over through the centuries has the church been able to see the power of God manifest in a far greater way quantitatively than Jesus ever did in his limited three-year ministry in one location.

Listen, look at verse 20, he is able, that’s enough, isn’t it? He is able to do, he is able to do what you ask, he is able to do what you ask or think, he is able to do all that you ask or think, he is able to do above all that you ask or think, he is able to do abundantly above all that you ask or think, and that’s not all. He’s able to do exceeding abundantly above all that you ask or think. Don’t ever say, Lord, I don’t know if you can use me in this situation.

He can, beyond your dreams, infinitely beyond, what a power is there. And as a church, we should have that power. You know, I don’t believe we’ve even begun to see what God could do if we really got turned on. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, said Paul to the Corinthians, when you are gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t ever forget it. When the church gathers together, it gathers with the Holy Spirit and the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when it separates, every believer goes out of here, able to do exceeding abundantly above all he can ask or think if he follows the pattern right here.

. Talk about winning people to Christ. Talk about teaching the saints. Talk about denting the world. Listen. Don’t you ever be smug enough to think that Grace Community Church has arrived. We haven’t begun to touch even this valley. And I’ve been asking God somehow to help us to do that. I have been praying regularly that God would help us to reach and win this valley for Jesus Christ. And you know what? I can ask that, and I can think that, and God can do more than that. Who knows? Maybe we’ll go over the hill and get the rest.

But I’ll never be content until we begin to see in our lives abundantly beyond what God could ever ask or think. Let me tell you something. When I started out as a pastor, I started out in the ministry. I didn’t know anything. I still don’t know much. This is the first church I ever pastored. The first two fellows died of a heart attack. They said, get them young. We don’t care if he’s good. We can’t support another wife. Just get him. I’m not sure that’s what they said. I think that’s what they probably said. And I didn’t know anything.

Talk about being green. I came here, and these dear people were gracious enough. And just coming in here this morning and looking at you is beyond what I ever asked or dreamed of. And I’ve seen God do it in the past, and I believe he’ll do it again in the future. And I want him to see it. I want to see him do it in your life individually and in our lives collectively. The power is there. The resource is there. There’s no limit to what God can do. He can cause us to mount up with wings as eagles.

He can cause us to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint. He can accomplish things through us that we never dreamed, but not until we follow his pattern, not until we realize we have to yield to the Spirit, to be strengthened in the inner man, that Christ may fill us with himself, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God, and then the power will flow through us. And when it’s all said and done, just to make sure nobody gets proud, nobody says, look what I did, verse 21 closes, Unto him be what? Glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, generations without end.

Amen. You see, God wants to be glorified in the church, and Christ made it possible for God to be glorified in the church. Christ came and redeemed the church, and so by Christ Jesus, God can be glorified in the church. But listen, people, he can’t be glorified in the church until the church really uses its resource. It’s the same thing I tried to tell you earlier in chapter 3. God wants the angels to give him glory, doesn’t he? Because of the church, and if the church isn’t what it ought to be, it diminishes the glory he gets from the angels.

And if the church isn’t what it ought to be, then God is not glorified as he ought to be glorified. Listen, I’m saying this very practically. If we just go along, doing our little deal, that’s why dead churches are so awful. If we just go along, doing our little deal, the conclusion is, God is just going along, doing his little deal. If the church is dead, then God is dead. You see? If you function half-baked, then God is half-baked. But if we see God move, and we see God’s power flow through this church, then God is glorified.

Do you understand that? Because what you are is a living advertisement for your God. Believe me, and if God is to be glorified in the church, it is to be because the church is moving in an expression of the mighty power that he has. Let him translate this into your matter of living. Listen, don’t cheat yourself out of what God can do by thinking you’ve only got a little bit of resource. I’m going to close with this. One of Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman’s meetings was being held, and a man arose to give a remarkable testimony.

This is what the man said. I’m quoting him. I got off the Pennsylvania depot as a tramp, and for a year I begged on the streets for a living. One day I touched a man on the shoulder, and I said, Hey, mister, can you give me a dime? As soon as I saw his face, I was shocked to see that it was my own father. I said, Father, Father, do you know me? Throwing his arms around me with tears, he said, Oh, my son, I found you, I found you, a dime, all I have is yours.

And then this man said, Men, think of it, I was a tramp. I stood begging my own father for ten cents, when for eighteen years he had been looking for me to give me all that he was worth. Listen, don’t ask your Heavenly Father for a dime. Take all that he’s got to give. Don’t live as a beggar on a pittance, when the resources are there to live as a king to his glory. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of the turning on of your engine, internal power. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world.

To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].