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Thursday, July 9

You may not think of yourself as a powerful person but truth be told, we have all been given a certain amount of power. Power comes to us in many ways and forms. There is the power to influence with words or by actions, there’s positional power, financial power, physical power…just to name a few. I reiterate, power comes in many ways and forms.

Power also comes in stages. There are stages in life where we grow in power and at other stages we lose power. These stages will continue until the day our lives come to an end and we have to stand before God to give account for what we did with the power He gave us. I repeat, you may not see yourself as a powerful person but rest assured you most definitely have power. The question then becomes, how should we use the power we’ve been given, and why has He empowered us?

When someone assigns power they do so with a specific purpose in mind. When a company empowers a worker it is with the goal of seeing that a specific agenda is fulfilled. The same is true when it comes to God. God has empowered us with the purpose of seeing that His agenda, not ours, is fulfilled. Imagine for a moment depositing your hard earned money in a bank retirement account but when it comes time to retire and withdraw your funds, you find that the bank officer used your money for his own agenda. So, we need to ask ourselves, what does God want me to do with the power He’s given me? Here’s some good news, Jesus has given us the answer.

Its roughly 24 hours before Jesus is set to be nailed to a cross. Realizing that His time on earth is coming to an end, He gathers His disciples to teach them how they should use the power God has given them and the power they would eventually gain after His resurrection.

John 13: 1 / 3-5 / 12-17 NIV

It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

What are you going to do with your power? Jesus was the most powerful man ever to walk the earth yet He clearly demonstrated for us what the proper use of power is. Power is to be leveraged out of love, for the benefit of others and not for our own gain. Imagine what the world would look like if Christians acted like Jesus, waking up every day asking how they could leverage their God given power to love and serve others.

Power is given by God to be leveraged out of love to benefit others.