The Power of God
'After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned and cried out under their burden of slavery, and their cry for deliverance from bondage ascended to God.
So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the Israelites and took notice.’
Exodus 2:23-25
God’s chosen people, the Hebrews, were enslaved and brutally oppressed by Egyptian rule and their male babies taken from them and thrown into the Nile. In their distress, they cried out for deliverance. God heard them and remembered His covenant and chose to save them. He took notice, He cared and He acted.
Who can stop God when He determines to do something? No one, not one. To liberate His people, God turned rods into snakes, made hands leprous and healed them again and He sent plagues; turning water to blood, swarms of frogs, gnats and flies, a livestock epidemic, boils, hail storms mixed with fire, swarms of locusts, complete darkness, and the death of the first born.
Prayer is powerful because the One to whom we pray is powerful. It is God’s power and the nature of His character that gives us confidence to cry out to Him for help. His great love and mercy draws desperate hearts to the throne of grace where mercy is received and grace to help is always found.
Yet as incredible as the exodus of His people was, His most astounding act of love was still to come, when He came to earth Himself as a helpless babe and took the torture and misery of the cross for sinful and disobedient people.
As Christians, Jesus called us ‘the light of the world’. When He called us into His grace and mercy we became His children and stepped out of darkness into His light. Today, we look around and see a world that, though wondrous and beautiful, is also very evil, dark and dangerous. We live in enemy territory ruled by the most evil, oppressive ruler of all, the prince of this world, Satan. We look around and see a world full of his oppression. We see people who are lost and dying and hurtling towards an unknown eternity. We see violence, hate, murder, abuse of all kinds imaginable. We see people sold as slaves, addictions, sickness, prostitution, witchcraft, devil worship and sacrifice.
Yet, we are children of God. When we cry out to Him, in His great lovingkindness, He hears us and He cares.
In His goodness, God rescued us from the darkness and evil in this world. Everyone we meet is either saved by God's grace through faith or still trapped in this desperate, hopeless condition of being guilty of sin against God and they are under condemnation. They need our prayers. They need us to intercede for them and cry out for their salvation. What a privilege it is to pray for others to be rescued, just as we were. What a joy it is when we see those we have prayed for come into God’s kingdom, as brands plucked from the fire.
Will you cry out to the Lord to give you a heart full of love for the people made in His image?
Will you cry out to the Lord on behalf of the oppressed people of this world, and their needs?
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Matthew 6:33
First of all, therefore, I exhort entreaties, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings, to be made on behalf of all men. 1 Timothy 2:1
As a prisoner in the Lord, then, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling you have received: Ephesians 4:1
You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:14-16
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 1 John 4:16
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:8
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12:1-2
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:34-35
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, Colossians 1:13