By J.A. Medders
For Day 4 of our 2020 Wrapped plan, we asked our marketing team to uncover the community’s most shared reading of 2020. This reading comes from Day 4 of our Ephesians study, where Paul describes God’s mighty power displayed in Christ.
If you grew up as an evangelical Christian in the 1990s, then I bet you saw The Power Team. In the 90s, these tank-topped and muscled-up Christian men were ripping phone books in half, cracking Louisville sluggers on their foreheads, and obliterating towers of ice blocks. Their muscles had muscles. Who doesn’t want to see power on display?
That’s why Paul tells us about the immeasurably great power of God, displayed in God ripping His Son from the bonds of death and obliterating the curse of sin. “He exercised this power in Christ by raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens” (Ephesians 1:20). Talk about a display of power!
After Jesus died for our sins on the cross, He became a lifeless corpse, held up by Roman nails. His body was no longer powered by blood, oxygen, and the brain. But on Easter Sunday, the power came back on. Jesus Christ was raised back to life, and He reigns to this day as the King of all. No one outranks Jesus in this world or the world to come. As Eugene Peterson paraphrased in The Message:
God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven,
in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments,
no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being,
but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything (Ephesians 1:20–23).
That’s power. None of our attempts at power displays can compare to the resurrecting power of God—a true “flex,” as they say. The risen Christ is a living billboard of God’s power, but not power for power’s sake. It’s for you and it’s for me. This is the level of power that is at work in every Christian. No protein powder can match the power that is at work in you this very second. You are on the same team as the one who is in charge of the universe, and you are on His mind, His heart, His daily schedule. The risen Lord is ready to lead us, grow us, and transform us by His power. Rejoice. Rest. Run your race.
Written by J.A. Medders
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