POWER WEEK!

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Invisible Power ... Tangible Results

    Some 420 years after the last prophet, Malachi, powerful Rome ruled Palestine. Jews were still without independence, and the Messiah had not yet come.

   God sent the angel Gabriel – not just any angel – to tell Mary, a young virgin in Nazareth, that she will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. The Lord God will give him the throne of his Father David, and he will reign (have power) over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.

   Mary was bewildered. Gabriel explained, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will over-shadow you. Mary believed. I am the Lord’s servant, she replied. There was power in Mary’s belief, for her cousin Elizabeth, by the Holy Spirit, exclaimed, Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!  - Luke chapter 1

He Alone Satisfied the Law

   When Jesus begin his mission at age 30, he was tested for 40 days without food or drink, but he had the power to refuse Satan’s temptations. You know of his teaching, healing, driving out demons…and once even walking on water.

   What kind of power dwelt in authorities who knew all this, who were there when Lazarus walked out of his tomb after four days? Yet they wanted Jesus dead. Of course, it was God’s plan from the beginning, that he should suffer the punishment for all our sins, and offer grace and eternal life to those who believe, repent and obey.

   Paul later wrote, At just the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. – Romans 5:6.  For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. – Romans 8:3.

  

Tomorrow: The power of resurrection