ACCESS TO POWER
© Paul Brydson November 1998
The Church of God in Williamstown
WEB SITE: http://www.alphalink.com.au/~sanhub/index.htm

MAN AND POWER

In our hearts is both the need and the potential to exercise dominion over our lives. Without some sense of power to influence the outcomes of our lives, we must inevitably be plagued by despair, frustration and a sense of hopelessness. Therefore each of us, in a number of different ways, has sought out and put our trust in certain sources of power and learned well, or not so well, how to use them.

There are many things that men learn which give them a degree of power over their circumstances, and sometimes power over others. Our physical strength, abilities and even our beauty can be used to exercise power. However, our individual bodies have limitations and weaknesses, and so men seek ways to magnify their personal power.
With our bare arms we can do a certain amount of work. Put a hammer or a saw in our hands and our power is increased. Put a crane or a bulldozer in our hands and our power is magnified even further. With our bare arms we can defend ourselves to a certain extent. With a gun in our hand our power is increased. An army at our disposal will magnify our personal power enormously. With our brain we can learn to perform certain calculations. A calculator in our hands will enable us to do more, faster. With a computer, our power to calculate and produce a multitude of pieces of information is hugely magnified. We could draw similar parallels with wealth and knowledge. There are numerous ways in which men seek to magnify their power and influence.
Man's use of tools is not wrong. However, he is too often dazzled and enchanted by his own cleverness and by the power gained by his tools or abilities that these too easily become idols.

Of course Scripture warns us of these dangers:

A person's thinking becomes restricted and limited by the characteristics of the idol they embrace. An old saying goes, "to the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail". We too are tempted to trust in our tools, or idols of power, that may seem to give us a greater sense of power over our lives than what we have as naked individuals. But stripped of our technologies, our computers, our cities, the protection we may have by being part of some group, our bank balance and our jobs, how powerful are we?

Another source of power that people trust in is other people. "It's not what you know, but whom you know that counts", the old saying tells us. And we could say the same thing. It's the God we are coming to know who makes all the difference to our lives. Each of us would say that our trust is in God, that He is the source of our strength. But is He really my source of power and strength? What I would like to then consider is the idea of having access to the power of God.


OUR ACCESS TO POWER
Now we, according to Scripture, have access to the Authority and Power that makes things happen in the universe:.

What is the mindset of a person who really believes that they have this access? At this time there is an awesome answer to these prayers of the saints. What prayers am I contributing that God will value enough to save up to answer at that time? These prayers of the saints will be characterised by a deep sense of justice and a confident, active faith. They really have believed that they have had access to power to change things.

Of late, I've also been confronted by the thought that the overwhelming effect of the ideas that many people hold is a depressing passivity and a powerlessness in the face of the greater overwhelming forces of the world and society around them.

And so I've been considering: do I really believe that I have access to the throne of the Power over the whole universe, and how, in the face of what I see and experience in the world, is that reflected in my prayers and in my works?

WORK
At work I have a position that holds a little power. In one small area of my company's business, I have a degree of power to make things happen. And in that position, I have found it interesting to consider the way requests are made of me to do certain jobs, and how I respond to them. For example:

So in my position of limited power to make things happen I receive all sorts of requests, which I respond to in different ways. I'm sure you can relate to similar scenarios in your own circumstances as to how you relate to different requests that you receive from family, friends or people with whom you work. What I would like us to now consider is the sort of requests we are making to God, and how God feels about them.

TO WHOM DOES GOD LISTEN?

Here is an individual who gives begrudgingly because of someone else's stubborn perseverance. One of the lessons is that if a carnal person will begrudgingly give what is asked for persistently, how much more will our generous God give to those who are persistent? But how do we feel about having to ask in this way, about having to be so persistent, almost to the point of begging for something (cf. Mt 5:3,6)? What experiences have we had in our past that now affect how we feel about asking for things? No doubt we sometimes feel uncomfortable asking, or are made to feel uncomfortable asking. Have some of our requests in the past actually been dirty and unclean in the eyes of those whom we have been asking? How do we become confident that we can make requests that are clean, no matter of whom we make them, especially if it is of God? It's worth noting that in the parable of Luke 11, what the man was asking for was for bread to feed someone else, rather than making a request to satisfy his own wants.

Surely God is not begrudging in His response to our prayers, but rather desires to give His good gifts to those who really do want them. But will He give them to the likes of someone who maintains that his request is vitally urgent and then forgets about it for a month? Or to a child who cries out for a new toy, uses it once or twice and never touches it again?

So are we growing in a deep, abiding faith, one that is willing to be tested in terms of the genuineness of the requests we are making? Do we really desire justice, or is it a passing whim? Are we really convicted about the requests that we actively seek to work out in our prayers, or are they simply expressions of a vague, half-hearted hope, or token protests against something wrong, sort of like sending a letter to the government protesting over the introduction of a Goods and Services Tax? BOLDNESS BEFORE GOD
We are told to have boldness in coming before God. How do we gain such boldness? In part, it must come through having real conviction that what we are seeking is undeniably worthwhile- just, needed and helpful. When someone asks us to help with something we think is really worthwhile, we are more than willing to lend our support. How much more willing is God to support things that advance the name of His Son Jesus Christ and the good works He has planned for us to do! So God hears those who are pure in heart and who are concerned about the same things He is. He actively listens to those who are concerned with justice. When we are busy and have important things to attend to, we don't like to be disrupted by trivial distractions. How much more will God reject the empty, vain, repetitious babble of unthinking people?

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