Christian Living

THE BELIEVER'S TRUE SOURCE OF POWER

by Chi Onwuchekwa
07/12/21
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“I am the vine, ye are the branches … for without me ye can do nothing.”

We know from 2 Corinthians 5:17 that accepting Christ as Lord automatically closes the chapter of the old and opens us up to the new; one in which Christ is the vine and we are the branches. This analogy clearly indicating that just as a branch lives solely off the flow of life and resources from the vine, we also are now destined to live solely off resources flowing from Christ into us. Everything we do - our thinking, our talking, our praying and every dimension of life and living - is meant to be done with the power and abilities flowing through from Christ to us.

But that is not so often the case; evidenced by the multitude of things that we do even after being saved, things that we know could never, ever be the result of the flow from the Lord Jesus. For example, when we tell lies, we know that that ability cannot be a flow from the Vine to us, because Jesus is the Truth. Rather, it is a clear proof that we have become in a sense detached from the vine and have left ourselves open to receiving abilities from another source – an ability that enables us to tell lies. In John 8:44, Jesus said:

“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”

Thus, when a child of God tells a lie, that ability to lie has come from Satan’s resources.

It can be difficult to discern where the true flow of power to live the spiritual life in Christ ought to come from given that much of what ought to be done by the Spirit can also be outwardly seemingly accomplished by the natural man. Also, the rise of false teachers, false prophets and false miracle workers who, in the order of the magicians of Egypt, outwardly also seem able to do what the true ministers of God can do has misled many into not being able to discern if the flow of power they see is from Jesus Christ, the Vine or another source.

And that leads us to a second source of power we must be exceedingly mindful of - the abilities of the natural man that we had before we got saved.  This can become so subtly deceptive because previously we were literarily able to do all that we needed to do with it – I mean, natural men pray, fast, think, speak, relate with others, read the Bible, counsel others, invest and do everything. We can all attest that many who have not the Spirit of God still go on to do and accomplish much because God did create man to ‘… be fruitful, to multiply, to fill the earth, subdue and have dominion over it’.

And so even after we get saved, it is easy to continue to run on the old source of power and not recognize that the biblical way is to disconnect from the flow of power we used to run on and get connected to the only approved source for the Christian believer by becoming a branch to the Vine that is Christ Jesus.

Many of us, though saved with the potential to access the phenomenal power of God available through the indwelling Holy Spirit, continue to live on the resources and abilities of the old man – whose form is natural and not spiritual. And that is why many struggle to live holy, to speak the truth at all times, to stay humble, to love others as we ought to… because we end up putting ‘new wine’ in old wine skin’ by attempting to live the new life in Christ with the resources and nature of the old man.

Those who belong to Christ must be crucified with Him, relinquishing their former abilities as natural men to embrace and take on grace to live and accomplish much only through that which is made available to them in Christ Jesus. Apostle Paul described the swap in the source of power to live in Galatians 2:20 when he wrote:

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God…”

What he was simply saying in Galatians 2:20 is:  ‘I lived in the flesh then and I still do now (flesh being the human physical form and not carnality), the only difference is that the life I live in the flesh now I live through Christ who lives in me and by faith in Him.  Christ is become the only source of all I do and by which I now live.’

As saved men and women, we are no longer expected to live out our time here on the pre-existing abilities of the natural man because the natural man intrinsically lacks the capacity to know, receive or discern the things of God – 1 Corinthians 2:4. Rather, we must surrender all that we are and have to God in a bid to die to self, disconnect from the old ‘power grid’ and get connected to the true source of power for the Christian believer by becoming a fully grafted branch to the One to whom all power in heaven and earth belongs!

I pray that God will give us all a clear view of our current situation on this, letting us know whether we are running fully on Christ alone, or whether we are still running on a combined Christ plus the natural man power, and if we are how much of Christ and how much of the old man are we living on. Above this, I pray with all of my heart that God will, in an outpouring of unbelievable and great mercy, graft us fully back into Christ so much so that all that we are and do from today will be accomplished solely from the flow of life and power that comes through Christ Jesus, our Lord, in Jesus name.

Chinwe Onwuchekwa
WORLD REVIVE MINISTRIES

www.worldrevive.org

[email protected]

© 6^th July 2021