Omnipotence: The Power of God

From the Series—Omni
May 24, 2002

Omni. It means infinite or without limit. This series of evotionals, Omni: To Infinity and Beyond, will focus on three dimensions of God. He is omniscient. God knows everything about everything. He is omnipresent. God is everywhere all the time. And He is omnipotent. There is nothing God cannot do.

In Genesis 17:1, God reveals himself to Abraham as El-Shaddai which literally means “God Almighty.” There are over 400 names for God in the Old and New Testament. Each one reveals one dimension of who God is. El Shaddai is self-explanatory. God is all-mighty! God tells Abraham that he and his wife are going to have a baby. Here’s the catch. Sarah is barren. And Sarah is past child-bearing age. She is ninety and Abraham is almost a hundred. Romans 4:18-21 retells the story from a New Testament perspective. Take a second to read and reread the passage.

“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead--since he was about a hundred years old--and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what he had promised.”

“Fully persuaded.” I think most of us are partially persuaded, but that’s not good enough. We need to know that we know that we know that God is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine. He is El-Shaddai.

When I was in the eighth grade, a visitation team from our church came to our house and asked if they could “agree in prayer” with us about anything. I’ve had asthma since I was three years-old and have been hospitalized numerous times with breathing complications so we held hands and prayed that God would heal my asthma.

To make a long story short, I still have asthma. But when I got up the next morning I made an interesting discovery. All the warts on my feet were gone! My first thought was that there must have been some kind of mix-up. I thought, “Someone somewhere still has warts but they’re breathing great.” Or maybe prayer is like the game of telephone. Somewhere between here and heaven, asthma turned into ulcers which turned into acne which turned into warts.”

Then I heard what I describe as the inaudible but unmistakable voice of God. His spirit spoke to my spirit and said, “I just wanted you to know that I am able.” That experience was a defining moment. It made it difficult to doubt. I don’t always get what I ask for, but I am fully persuaded that God is able!

For what it’s worth, I’ve told this story several times in several places and you’d be surpised at how many people have had the same experience. They prayed for something and their warts disappeared. I almost wonder if it’s God’s default setting. “I’m not going to give you what you’re asking for, but let me go ahead and get rid of those warts!”

Degree of Difficulty

Jeremiah 32:17 says, “You have made the heavens and the earth by your great power. Nothing is too difficult for you.” In other words, with God there are no degrees of difficulty! Let me put that passage into a mathematical axiom:

to the infinite, all finites are equal.

In John 6, Jesus feeds 5,000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish. It doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out that those numbers don’t add up. You can’t feed 5,000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fish. Peter says, “Eight month’s wages won’t buy enough bread for everyone to have a bite.” You can almost see Peter crunching the numbers and it doesn’t add up. It’ll break their budget. Then Andrew says, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” You can almost see Andrew crunching the numbers and it doesn’t add up. Any way you slice it, 5 + 2 = 7.

But that doesn’t stop Jesus. John 6:11 says, “Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. When they had all had enough to eat, he said to the disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. So they gathered them and filled 12 baskets of leftovers.” In God’s economy, 5 + 2 = 5,000 + 12 baskets of leftovers! They actually end up with more than they started with and that’s after feeding 5,000!

Moving Mountains

Jesus said, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

The phrase “moving mountains” was a Jewish figure of speech that referred to anything that seemed impossible. Mountains were considered the most stable of all things--immovable. So to move a mountain would be the most incomprehensible feat. By stark contrast, a mustard seed was the tiniest of seeds. It was synonymous with “small quantity.” Jesus intentionally used two opposite images--the most incomprehensible feat and the smallest conceivable quantity of faith--to make a point. And the point is this: God can take the smallest quantity of faith and accomplish the impossible. A little faith goes a long way!

From a human perspective, there are degrees of difficulty--small problems and big problems, small miracles and big miracles. We tend to think of our prayer requests as having different degrees of difficulty. But with God, there is no big or small, easy or difficult, possible or impossible. To the infinite, all finites are equal. As Jeremiah 32:17 says, “Nothing is too difficult for you.” We ought to cut the word “impossible” out of our dictionaries! Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Believe It or Not

A.W. Tozer said, “A low view of God is the cause of a hundred lesser evils. A high view of God is the solution to ten thousand temporal problems.” An evotional on omnipotence is more than an academic exercise--a cognitive grasp of some theological concept. This is about exercising faith. Let me tell you why this is so important. If you aren’t “fully persuaded” you won’t step out in faith. When the rubber meets the road, you have to believe it to achieve it.

In the 1930’s, a graduate student at UC Berkeley named George Danzig was late to class. The mathematics professor had written two problems on the blackboard. He thought they were the homework assignment. They were two of the toughest problems he’d ever encountered. Night after night he tried solving them. A week later he finally figured them out. He put the solved problems into the professor’s inbox and thought he’d get a bad grade because it took so long.

A few weeks later, George heard a pounding on his door early in the morning. He was surprised to see his mathematics professor. His professor said, “George, you solved them.” George said, “Of course, they were our homework assignment.” The professor said, “That was not your homework assignment. Those were two of the most famous insolvable problems in mathematics--leading mathematicians have been trying for years to solve the two problems you solved in a few days.”

George Danzig, who later became a professor at Stanford University, said, “If someone had told me that they were two famous unsolved problems, I probably wouldn’t have even tried to solve them.” Bingo. You’ve got to believe it to acheive it. In other words, if you don’t think it can be done you won’t even try.

One of my favorite Old Testament stories is in II Kings 6:4-7, “Elisha and a company of prophets went to the Jordan river and began to cut down trees. As one of them was cutting down a tree, the iron axhead feel into the water. ‘Oh, my lord,’ he cried out, ‘it was borrowed.’ Elisha asked, ‘Where did it fall?’ When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick and threw it there, and made the iron float. ‘Lift it out,’ he said. Then the man reached out his hand and took it.”

Iron axheads don’t float. They sink. Period. Once it’s gone it gone. It reminds of Jack Handey’s deep thought, “If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let ‘em go man, cause they’re gone.”

If I’m Elisha, I try to console the guy. “I’m sorry you lost your axhead.” I may even let him use mine or help find a replacement. But what I love about Elisha is that he doesn’t give up. He’s seen God do the impossible before and he believes that God can do the impossible again. Elisha throws a stick in the river. The iron axhead floats. Problem solved.

Here’s the thing: if Elisha didn’t believe God could do it, he would have never tried it. You have to believe it to achieve it. To borrow Jesus’ words, “You have not because you ask not.” One of NCC’s core values is dream the unthinkable and attempt the impossible. We believe that God is honored when we ask for the impossible. We just need to step out in faith.

Maybe you’d say, “But I’ve never experienced a miracle.” Or maybe you don’t even have a cognitive category for miracles. You’d say, “Miracles don’t happen.” With all due respect, I beg to differ.

Right now you have no sensation of motion, but you are traveling 66,600 mph through space. Today you will travel more than 1.5 million miles in your annual trek around the sun. Not only that, the earth is rotating on its axis at about 1,000 mph. When was the last time you thanked God for keeping us in orbit? When was the last time you said, “God, I wasn’t sure we were going to make the full rotation today. Thanks!”

The truth is: you already trust him for the big stuff--keeping the planets in orbit. We just need to trust him with the “little stuff.” Randy Hurst says, “God is great not because nothing is too big for him. God is great because nothing is too small for him.”

The Force

Not only is God omnipotent, but he wants to fill us with His power. In Colossians 1:29, Paul says, “To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.” I think one form of idolatry is trying to do life in our own strength. Habakkuk talks about an idolatrous people “whose own strength is their god.” I can’t make it in my own power and I wasn’t meant to. I Corinthians 4:20 says, “The Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.” In Matthew 22:29, Jesus says to the Pharisees, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.” The first half of that verse makes sense to most of us. If you don’t know the word of God you’re going to fall into error. But the second half fascinates me. If you don’t know the power of God you’re going to fall into error. In II Timothy 3:5, Paul talks about a people who have “a form of godliness but deny it’s power.”

This past Sunday we celebrated Pentecost. Pentecost is all about being filled with the power of God. In Acts 1, just before his ascension, Jesus said, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Then in Acts 1:8, He says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The word “power” is the Greek word dunamis. It’s where we get our English word dynamite. It has several meanings. It can mean “ability” or “possibility” or “miracle” or “strength.” And for all you Star Wars fans, the most literal translation might be “force.”

A few years ago, USA Today Weekend asked some athletes and entertainers what “the force” meant to them. I love what tennis star Michael Change said. “The Force is the Holy Spirit, who lives in each Christian believer’s heart. He guides, protects, comforts, convicts, and of course, loves. And since the Holy Spirit is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, you know this Force is always with you.”

I realize that Star Wars is science fiction. But fact is stranger than fiction. There are some pretty amazing Hollywood Scripts, but Scripture upstages all of them. Have you read the Bible lately? Jesus walked on water and walked through walls. He changed the molecular structure of water into wine. He made the lame walk and the mute talk. He stopped a hurricane in its tracks.

In Acts, there are angelic jailbreaks and shadow healings. Acts 8 records a miraculous time warp--Philip is miraculously transported through time and space. He dematerializes in Gaza and rematerializes in Azotus, 40 miles away!

The force is not something out of a Hollywood script. It’s something out of Scripture. It’s not an impersonal energy field. It’s the person of the Holy Spirit.

Physicists have discovered and defined four forces--gravity, electromagnetic, strong and weak nuclear--but Dr. Paul Pearsall says quantum physicists “cannot do experiments or begin to understand quarks or stars or particles and waves without referring to a subtle and often tricky fifth force.”

God is the Fifth Force--the Force behind the forces. Colossians 1:16 says, “All things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Physicists are mystified by how molecules stay together. According to Colossians 1:16, God is the Gluon that keeps the universe from falling apart.

Acts 17:28 says, “In Him we live, and move, and have our being.” It is the Spirit of God that animates and energizes us. Job said, “If God withdrew His spirit and breath, all mankind would perish together and man would return to dust.” God is the Force that keeps everything from imploding.

The Receiving End

The key word in Acts 1:8 is “receive.” It has several meanings. In the most simplistic sense, the word is used to talk of eating and drinking. It means “to lay claim to what is legally yours.” It means “to give access to.” But I personally think the final meaning is the best interpretation in this instance. It means “to seize” or “to capture.” There is an inherent intensity and tenacity in Acts 1:8.

Matthew 11:12 says, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of God suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” The NIV says, “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of God has been forcefully advancing and forceful men lay hold of it.”

“May the Force be with you,” says Dr. Richard Gerber. “Throughout history, we have been in search of this magical invisible force that seems to offer unlimited strength and healing and that transcends all other forms of energy.”

The Force is none other than the Holy Spirit. He wants to fill you with His power. Are you willing to be on the receiving end?