Experiencing God

Experiencing God’s Life-Changing Power (Eph. 1:18-2:10) Paul prayed for believers to receive a spirit of Wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God (Eph. 1:17) How you see things sometimes makes all the difference A shoe manufacturer who decided to open the Congo market sent two salesmen to the undeveloped territory. One salesman cabled back: “Prospect here nil. No one wears shoes.” The other salesman reported enthusiastically, “Market potential terrific! Everyone is barefooted.” Illustration: Attitude and Strength A person’s mental attitude has an almost unbelievable effect on his powers, both physical ad psychological. The British psychiatrist, J.A. Hadfield, gives a striking illustration of this fact in his booklet, The Psychology of Power. “I asked three people,” he wrote, “to submit themselves to test the effect of mental suggestion on their strength, which was measured by gripping a dynamometer.” They were to grip the dynamometer with all their strength under three different sets of conditions. First he tested them under normal conditions. The average grip was 101 pounds. Then he tested them after he had hypnotized them and told them that they were very weak. Their average grip this time was only 29 pounds! In the third test Dr. Hadfield told them under hypnosis that they were very strong. The average grip jumped to 142 pounds. Bits and Pieces, May, 1991, p. 15 So that we might understand God’s calling Includes the call to repentance Includes the hope (i.e. confident expectation) of our salvation (Eph. 1:18) The Holy Spirit enables people to change their perspectives so they can creatively visualize everything that God wants to do through them. Paul wrote, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will." (Rom. 12:2)

The Holy Spirit teaches us that if people want to see God work in new ways they must be willing to believe God can work greater wonders through their relationships and ministries. Jesus said, "Anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." (John 14:12) In 1972, NASA launched the exploratory space probe Pioneer 10. According to Leon Jaroff in Time, the satellite’s primary mission was to reach Jupiter, photograph the planet and its moons, and beam data to earth about Jupiter’s magnetic field, radiation belts, and atmosphere. Scientists regarded this as a bold plan, for at that time no earth satellite had ever gone beyond Mars, and they feared the asteroid belt would destroy the satellite before it could reach its target. But Pioneer 10 accomplished its mission and much, much more. Swinging past the giant planet in November 1973, Jupiter’s immense gravity hurled Pioneer 10 at a higher rate of speed toward the edge of the solar system. At one billion miles from the sun, Pioneer 10 passed Saturn. At some two billion miles, it hurtled past Uranus; Neptune at nearly three billion miles; Pluto at almost four billion miles. By 1997, twenty-five years after its launch, Pioneer 10 was more than six billion miles from the sun. And despite that immense distance, Pioneer 10 continued to beam back radio signals to scientists on Earth. "Perhaps most remarkable," writes Jaroff, "those signals emanate from an 8-watt transmitter, which radiates about as much power as a bedroom night light, and takes more than nine hours to reach Earth.’" “The Little Satellite That Could” was not qualified to do what it did. Engineers designed Pioneer 10 with a useful life of just three years. But it kept going and going. By simple longevity, its tiny 8-watt transmitter radio accomplished more than anyone thought possible. God gives His own all they need to realize and accomplish their calling, as Jesus realized and accomplished His (Eph. 1:20-23) You may be an “outsider” to the “world”, but you are an “insider” among God’s people. You are, each one, an integral part of the Body of Christ, fashioned for a purpose. God’s inheritance We are as precious gems to God, bought at a great price God’s power Specifically, God’s power to redeem fallen mankind To walk according to this worldly age is to adopt its corrupt and temporal standards and values, which emanate from Satan, the Father of Lies (Eph. 2:2-3) God’s wrath represents his resolute opposition to all that is unholy and unrighteous (Eph. 2:3) We are saved, by grace, through faith, not by works. (Eph. 2:8-9)

Faith = trusting reliance upon We are not saved by good works, we are saved for good works (Eph. 2:9-10) Our God-directed good works bring glory to God (1 Pe. 2:12) We, as part of God’s church on earth here today, exist to shine the light of God’s love and truth, defying and piercing the darkness maintained by the dark prince of this world. In this, we are to be “steadfast and unmovable” (1 Cor. 15:58) and we are to speak and act with “all boldness” (Phil. 1:20-21). We are called to ourselves into the work of the master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort. We are called to act NOW. Jesus said, "Do not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest." (John 4:35) The Bible says, “If you wait for perfect conditions, you’ll never get anything done.” Ecc.11:4 NLT Every act of service you do for God by serving someone else no matter how small it may be is important to God! Several years ago two teenage boys tried to come into a church service at night only it was packed out and they couldn’t find any seats. So they turned around and decided to leave because they couldn’t find a seat. But one usher said “Come on, guys. I’ll find you a seat”. And that usher personally escorted them down to the center and set them in the middle and found them two seats. That night both of those boys accepted Christ and became Christians. One of them was Billy Graham. One stormy night an elderly couple entered the lobby of a small hotel and asked for a room. The clerk said they were filled, as were all the hotels in town. "But I can’t send a fine couple like you out in the rain," he said. "Would you be willing to sleep in my room?" The couple hesitated, but the clerk insisted. The next morning when the man paid his bill, he said, "You’re the kind of man who should be managing the best hotel in the United States. Someday I’ll build you one." The clerk smiled politely. A few years later the clerk received a letter from the elderly man, recalling that stormy night and asking him to come to New York. A round-trip ticket was enclosed. When the clerk arrived, his host took him to the corner of 5th Avenue and 34th Street, where stood a magnificent new building. "That," explained the man, "is the hotel I have built for you to manage." The man was William Waldorf Astor, and the hotel was the original Waldorf-Astoria. The young clerk, George C. Boldt, became its first manager.

Proclaiming the Truth As Voltaire said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." When the world says there is no true standard of right and wrong and all things are relative, we say there is a standard, divinely imparted to us, and what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong. When the world says that what is conceived in a mother’s womb is a mere mass of cells, subject to disposal when not convenient, or to harvesting and sale for medical or scientific research, we say that was grows in a mother’s womb is a baby, a sacred human life. Each one a uniquely and lovingly crafted blessing from our Father in heaven. When the world says that ending the lives of the severely braindamaged, terminally ill, or severely disabled is an act of mercy and a relief, we say that ALL human life, regardless of its quality, is sacred.