Your Own Personal Power Pack

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”  (II Timothy 1:6, 7)

Power alone can be destructive. Love alone can be sentimentality.

A sound mind alone can become only intellectual speculation. Power, love, and a sound mind given us by God is the antidote for fear and timidity.

Power, or authority mean the ability to achieve purpose. 

I saw a football game in which there was a player who gained an average of eight yards every time he carried the ball. That was power.

There was a little man about 5’10”.  Every time he carried the ball it was for fifteen yards. He carried a little yellow flag and every time he threw it he walked off fifteen yards. That was power, that is authority.

The word translated power in the text is often properly translated authority. He had the authority to:

1:9 “Saved us…”

1:9 “Called us…”

1:9 “Abolished death…”

1:9 “Brought life and immortality to light…”

In “God’s Trombones” there is a chapter entitled “Go Down Death.” It ends with the funeral eulogy of Sister Caroline concluding: “Weep not — weep not, She is not dead; She’s resting in the bosom of Jesus.”

The power is here depicted as power to suffer with Him and we will also reign with Him. (II Timothy 2:12).

Everyone, that is everyone, suffers. You may have been laboring under the misconception that you are the only one who suffers. If you have been thinking this is your distinction among humanity, it isn’t. Believers and non-believers alike suffer. Being a Christian means you have the capacity to go beyond the breaking point and not break. This is inherent in the power given you by your Savior. With Him suffering takes on purpose. Use your pain for your gain. If you know someone whose faith you admire, you know someone who has suffered.

To maintain this power it is essential to stir up the fire, that is the zeal, within you.

General Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, wrote to his followers: “The tendency of fire is to go out; watch the fire on the altar of our heart.”

Jesus wants to be your Master. Life without a spiritual master is like an orchestra without a conductor, a team without a coach, an army without a general. 

Everyone has a master. Some see their master every time they look in the mirror. With Jesus as your Master, life takes on an entirely new perspective.