Living Boldly for Christ: Daily Reflections on Faith, Prayer & Spiritual Life by David Hathaway
When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive power from God, and that power is meant to be demonstrated. What I sense today is that much of the Church is not living in that power or demonstrating it to the world. So, I would ask: if you have received the Holy Spirit, what difference has it made in your life?
When God deals with you, He does something unique. So often we want what other people have. In my relationship with God, I have never wanted what somebody else has. I want what is in His Word, what God has for me personally! Don’t copy other people. If you want the power of God, that power is not going to come from somebody else. Yes, others can lay their hands on you, but the power is going to come from God. Not from me, nor from someone else. You must get it direct from God and His Word.
God had to reduce Gideon’s army to only 300. Why? Because God can only use willing, obedient, committed people who will make His glory the first priority. God needs the right men and women in order to do what He wants, to bring glory to His Name, to bring deliverance to nations, to build His church – He’s looking everywhere, to find those through whom He can direct all His power, and energy into saving sinners.
God has always had a clear plan and strategy in everything He does. From creation to salvation, nothing has happened in heaven or earth without the foreknowledge of God. An important part of the strategy which God has for today is that He wants to show that His power is not just in heaven, but also demonstrated very powerfully on earth.
If you want to meet with God, you don’t have to wait until you have done this or that. I would never have become an evangelist, never seen a miracle of healing if God had waited until I was perfect before He answered my prayers. I call on God, He deals with me where I am. That’s why I was healed, not because I was ‘holy’. What God looks at is the deep desire of your heart.
Today it’s time that we began to rise up and recognise the power and authority that we have in Jesus’ Name. Power to preach a life-changing Gospel, power to bring healing miracles in order that He might receive the glory, and so that we as ‘ordinary’ people might have something dynamic to demonstrate in our lives! When Jesus healed the paralytic man (Matthew 9:6) He said, ‘So that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth... rise up and walk!’ Today we must become men and women of action to continue the demonstration begun by Jesus, so that non-believers will desire to have what we have!
I am calling you to do something, which I Myself am going to make absolutely impossible! I will cause him to refuse you, and make him stronger than ever in his anger against you – why? So that I can then demonstrate that I am God by destroying the power of Pharaoh and delivering My people – and this will not be with human power.
God wants to use the real you! He knows who you are. Sometimes when I am having problems, and I have to say – like Paul – ‘Lord, I am sorry, I should have done this and I shouldn’t have done that,’ and when I am trying to make excuses and say, ‘I’m not perfect, I can’t do this, and Lord, you know the problems I have in my life,’ God says, ‘Look, I knew you before you were born, I made you and it’s about time you understood I made you, just as you are, for a purpose.’
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