God’s power at work in our world, to defeat evil,
will only be seen where God’s people, in whom He has invested His power through His Spirit, are at work in the world.
God hasn’t filled us with His Spirit, raised us up as an army, dressed
us in the full armour of God, to have us sit on the side-lines while He does the
job himself.
We are the means by which God is at work in our
world. We are lights in dark places. We
are Salt. If we are not seeing God in action in our World, Our Countries, our
Cities, our Towns, our Villages, our Neighbourhoods and our Communities, it is
because God’s people are not at work. As
long as we sit on our backsides doing nothing, nothing is what we will see
being done.
If you think being a Christian is solely about
going to church regularly, about performing your religion to the satisfaction
of yourself and others, about quoting scripture to impress with your knowledge
and as a result, feeling pleased with yourself, then you are like the servant
to whom the master of the house gave the one Talent.
It is only when we move out in real prayer, in real
power, in real action and in real Love, that God will be seen to be at work, and
will be at work through His people, who are at work. It is, of course,
essential to be in God's power and that the action is what God wants.
If we are to come against the dark tide we need to
know God's power is stronger than our feeble efforts, like David’s battle
against Goliath. The Philistine Champion
had been taunting Israel’s troops for 40 days.
Then David comes on the battlefield and challenges the Philistine, “You
come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the
name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have
defied. This day the Lord will deliver you
into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I
will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild
animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is
not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he
will give all of you into our hands.”
Take special note of what David says. ‘I come against you in the name of
the Lord Almighty’.
If we fail in this, we will continue to feel powerless,
helpless, frustrated, discouraged and impotent to do anything against the dark
tide of evil which has already engulfed so much of the world around us, the
World we live in.
It is to us the question will be asked, ‘What have
you done with what you were given’.
[The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil
is for Good Men and Women to do nothing ~ Anon, but attributed to Edmund Burke]
