S201P10 – The abundant life: ability

Lk. 18:27

Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

God led you down a winding but level path lined with a quiet brook and beautiful foliage.  You can feel the breeze and hear the birds, and the sun is warm and bright.  Up ahead is a bend in the trail.  The bend is sharp, and you cannot see what lies beyond it.  As you make that turn, hopeful and at peace, you find yourself facing a mountain of jagged cliffs.  There is no path carved in the rocks.  You stop and ask God how you can proceed.  You have neither the equipment nor the skill-set to scale this facade.  The task seems impossible.  God tells you to look up, so you do.  You see yourself at the precipice after successfully climbing that mountain.  In an instant, you are now at the edge looking down at the path where you once stood.  The impossible has come and gone. The mountain that once stood before and above you is now beneath your feet.

We serve a God for whom all things are possible.  He created everything, and nothing exists that has not come into existence through him.  Whatever He desires to come to pass shall come to pass.  This omnipotent God has asked us to partner with him to achieve the impossible for his purposes.  The impossible, however, is only an illusion.  Yes, those things are impossible to us, but everything is possible for him.  To live the abundant Christian life is to face no impossibilities.  What God can accomplish through us and in us has no limits.  Of course that must be the case, because no man would follow a god who is bound by those things which bind mankind.  He has not given us a desire to remain operating within the confines of the physical world around us.  He has placed in our hearts a desire to operate in the spiritual realm beyond the physical. When He called us to himself, He called us to the seemingly impossible.

We Christians need not worry about being normal because we should not be normal.  Our lives should be different, compelling, and full of incredible testimonies to God’s almighty abilities.  We dream big because God has given us big dreams.  This is the God who promises us eternal life with him in his heavenly kingdom where there is no night and no pain and no sorrow and no evil.  A place like that surely seems impossible in this world, but that is the dwelling place of the God we serve.  In the confines of our human understanding his mere eternal existence seems like an impossibility, yet we know it is not.  He is eternally alive and well.  Father, transform us to live beyond the physical limits we encounter and perceive, and make us open to the challenge of allowing You to do the impossible through us here on Earth.