Monday, October 12, 2009

Connecting to Christ's Resurrection Power

Are You Plugged In?
Connecting to Christ's Resurrection Power


This past Saturday, I was presenting one of my How to Care Like Christ seminars (http://bit.ly/3YYAR4).

About five minutes into the presentation, my computer started to go into hibernation mode! Nothing I could do would stop it. The cords all seemed plugged into the power source, but it just shut down on me.

Imagine the scene. Put yourself in my shoes as a speaker.

My entire presentation is PowerPoint driven. Most of these people didn’t know me. The whole start and set-up for the entire day could be ruined.

What would you do? What would you think? How might you respond?

That’s When God Showed Up

The tech guys (always have tech guys!) discovered that someone had accidently unplugged the extension cord from the wall hidden behind the platform. We were disconnected from the power source.

As Forest Gump might say, “That’s when God showed up.”

God’s Spirit not only calmed my spirit, He enlightened my mind.

What Satan Meant for Evil, God Meant for God

I shared with the crowd, “Satan wants to ruin our day. God wants to empower our day.”

I continued, “My computer had been disconnected from the power source. It shut down, hibernated, because it has limited battery power of its own.”

I went on to say, “A major theme of the How to Care Like Christ seminar is that we must tap into Christ’s resurrection power (Philippians 3:10). The same power that raised Christ from the dead, is within every Christian (Ephesians 1:18-20).”

“Our limited power of the flesh is nothing compared to the infinite resurrection power of Christ. His power is not some impersonal force, for our God is infinitely powerful and infinitely personal. We tap into His power by connecting to Him; by fellowshipping with and worshipping Him; and by communing with Christ through spiritual disciplines.”

All of a sudden, every person in that room realized that God had shown up!

He blessed us with a disconnected power cord that shut down my computer and could have ruined my presentation because He wanted to teach us not to rely upon ourselves but upon the God who raises the dead!

Are You Plugged In?

At the end of the seminar, I always have us spend time reflecting on and sharing together about what most impacted us, about what we will “take home with us.”

Thankfully, many things we had shared in the How to Care Like Christ seminar impacted people.

But guess what impacted many people the most? Yep. It wasn’t anything I said or did. It was what God did. It was an unplugged power cord.

So many people shared, “What God taught me today is that in my Christian life, I have to stay connected to Him.” And, “If I am going to minister to others and care like Christ, then I have to stay plugged into Christ.”

Are you plugged in?

Or are you trying to live your Christian life on battery power?

The limited power of the flesh will eventually cause us to hibernate spiritually.

Let’s stay connected to our infinitely powerful and infinitely personal God.

Let’s stay plugged in!


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