Episode #208 God’s Power: More Than We Ask or Imagine – Knowing God

Hey friends, it's Jen. Welcome to this episode of Good God Talks. I love getting to spend these few quick minutes with you as we draw near to God and have uncommon conversations with Him in everyday life moments. Today we're talking with God about His omnipotence. Now omni means all and potent means power. So we're talking with God about how He is all powerful. If that feels "been there, done that" to you, stay tuned, you're not going to want to miss this episode.

And if that feels difficult to reconcile within yourself, don't stop this episode either. I know that that can be true for some of us. If we think about God as being all powerful, but we look at the circumstances where we're still in need of his power, or we look at things that have passed, wishing that God used his power in a different way. It can be difficult to think about our all-powerful God, not intervening in ways that we longed for him to. And we're bringing all of that into conversation with God today.

A great example of both of these things comes from Job 42:2, and it says,

"I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted."

Now, Job knows this. He has this awareness of God. And yet at the same time, Job walked through really painful things. He lost his children. He lost a substantial part of his wealth. He was afflicted severely for a season. And yet this remained true of God.

We see in Job 1:12 that God actually allowed Satan to come against Job, and yet God still restrained the enemy's power. It says,

“And the Lord said to Satan, ‘Behold, all that he has is in your hand. (talking about Job) Only against him do not stretch out your hand.’ So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

God restrained Satan from going too far. Now that doesn't mean that God calls good the ways that the enemy comes against us, but he allows things, knowing that he will use all things for our good. Even things that the enemy meant for harm.

Another example of this is when Jesus is handed over to be crucified. And Jesus tells the people, "You would have no authority over me at all, unless it had been given to you from above." (John 19:11)

So God restrains our enemy from working because he is all powerful.

And he also restrains himself by his own character.

For example, our God who has all power cannot lie because his very nature restrains himself. In Titus 1:2, it's talking about our hope of eternal life, "which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began."

God restrains himself by his own character, and he restrains the enemy from going too far, and even when circumstances of our fallen world or our own mistakes, the ways that we wound ourself, rise up—God is still capable of using those things for our good. There's no greater example of that than Jesus being handed over to be crucified because God used this for our rescue.

The same powerful God who remains true and pure unto himself by his own power by his own character in nature.
Who can tell the enemy how far he can go and no farther.
Who can use even painful circumstances in life and hardship and ache for our good.

The same God who rescued us from death is still at work in us by his power.

In Ephesians 3:20 it says, “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.”

This abundance that is available to us is by God's power. And it's not just God's power at work in him or by him as he goes about doing what he wants to do in the world. But it's his power by him at work in us that can do more abundantly than we can even ask or think.

And so today we're asking him to clue us in a little bit to how he is at work within us. If you really connected at the beginning to this idea of God's all-powerful nature (his omnipotence) being familiar, ask God to show you ways that you haven't seen that before. To broaden your awareness and your awe of him.

And if you related to the idea of God's all-powerful nature being difficult to consider in light of the pain that you've walked through or you are walking through, ask God to show you more about that too. Ask him to show you how you can trust his all-powerful nature, even in the circumstances you're in, and especially in the places where you can't quite see what he's doing yet.

And here's a question you can ask him:

God, I believe you're all powerful. What's one way your power is at work in me?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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