LIMITING THE POWER OF GOD

PSALMIST CHALLENGE: PSALM 71-75

PROVERBS CAPSULE: PROVERBS 15

We are used to limiting God in regard to the extent of His power. The Scripture gives us many instances of it, Jairus' daughter died, and his servants went hurriedly look for him and when they found him, they cried, "Sir, she is dead. There is no use troubling Jesus any further." What they meant was that as long as she was living there always the hope that He might cure her. There was no such hope now that she was dead. The servants were limiting the power of Jesus. There were certain things that were beyond Him. And sometimes when we view society today, are we not subject to the same temptation?

Sometimes we fall into the sin of limiting God to the greater hours of our life. We do not trust God to the end, we calculate God with our head. We believe in our education and think that God is out of fashion, we can find our own way of fulfilling the Word of God. The Israelites experienced God’s wonders in the land of Egypt and on their way back to Canaan but always forgotten what God has done for them, they were easily move towards sin, they remembered not what God has done for them in the past, always wanting and crying for more. If we are conscious of God’s presence and forget not His deeds of the past, we will not only have His promises fulfilled in our lives but also share in His authority (Psalm 78).

When Jesus teased Philip and asked where to buy bread for the multitudes to eat, he said, “Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.” Andrew too said, “There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?” (Read John 6) Philip and Andrew, as closed as they were to Jesus limited the power of God in Jesus. Andrew said, “But what are they (five loaves of bread and two fishes) among so many”, forgetting that the Lord of All, the Creator of the Heavens and Earth was the One talking. The same (Jesus) was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made. Andrew and Philip reduced the power of Jesus to five loaves of bread and two fishes.

Aren’t we doing the same today? Looking at the little in our hands versus the loads of problems confronting us, we tend to look away from the power of God and find solutions in something else, in human beings. And He (God) knows how to deal with people excesses and stubbornness, who queried Him when He dealt with the Israelites in the wilderness. He laboured to bring them out of the land of bondage, but promised those who limited His power that they will never enter into the Promised Land. Not even Moses who went contrary to God’s instruction, he could only look at Canaan from afar. Limiting the power of God is a grave offence; it is better you repent from such sin, have proper orientation about God, before it is too late.

Word Affirmation: “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want." – Psalm 23:1 (Don't just say it, mean it!)

“If we are conscious of God’s presence and forget not His deeds of the past, we will not only have His promises fulfilled in our lives but also share in His authority."

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