Archived Daily Manna | Rejoice Fellowship | A mission to release people to rejoice in the world.

Message: The “power” belongs to God. This is the easiest concept of the three to grasp when we pray it, but often the most difficult to remember after we say our amens. So many things and people have power over our daily lives. Our boss or a parent or a policeman or an armed criminal tells us to do something we don’t want to do. They have power over us. They can deprive us of money, liberty, or life; they can put us in pain or kill us. They can humiliate us. A big dog or the driver of an automobile can kill us in a matter of seconds. And we have power over things and people. We can work, we can create. We can have ideas. Some of us command others, and all of us influence others constantly. The simple action of buying a pack of gum directly influences a sales clerk to take actions and has a wide variety of milder influence: over the store owner, over the gum manufacturer and its suppliers, over some person sitting in an advertising agency somewhere, and so on. And if we throw the gum wrapper on the sidewalk, it has a very small influence on a number of people. Jesus calms the storm But where does this power come from? A foolish scientist might act like he knows the answer. He will eventually trace back the source to the sun. If you ask him where the sun gets its power, you will probably get a dissertation on hydrogen fusion. And if you keep asking him, he will trace the power source back to the creation of the universe (possibly the “Big Bang”), and he might even give you some hypotheses about when, how and why the Big Bang happened. But, eventually, if he is at all honest, he will say “nobody knows” (at least if he is an atheist or agnostic). But we know. It comes from God. We don’t understand it but our belief is a foundation of our faith. The Power comes from God. All power, all energy, originates from Him. As John 1 so beautifully puts it: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. Most Christians also believe that God continues to control the Power directly to intervene in human affairs, although we cannot comprehend how He chooses when to do so. Certainly He sent Christ into the world. Because of this, we say that we fear God, even though Christians do not really live in “fear” in the narrow definition. But if we fear the very minor power of a man with a gun, how should we feel about the God who created and controls everything? We should have a deep respect and fear, for he has absolute power to destroy us. But as Christians, our fear is tempered; God has given us means, by which He promises to exercise His power to give us eternal life and joy, even if we have offended his laws. If our faith were perfect, we would fear nothing, because we would believe God’s promises 100%. So, every time we say the Lord’s Prayer, we remind ourselves that the fears we feel during our lives will ultimately amount to nothing, that we do not need to live in fear. Ultimately, the power to hurt or help us comes entirely from God, and He has promised to save us.