God is Able

Devotion

3-12-10

By Josh McDowell

God is Able

Matthew 9:28

“And after He had come into the house, the blind men came up to Him, and Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ They said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord.’”

 

I learned years ago that for something to be lived out in my life, I have got to bring it down to where I understand it in a simple way. So when I hear words like, God is omniscience, omnipotent, it does not say anything to me. That’s not part of my vocabulary. So I redefine it without losing the meaning to where it speaks to me, then I am able to live it out in my life. So every time I see the word, omnipotent, I think of this, “He can do it.” That’s what it means, He is all powerful. He can do it. So maybe the rest of your life, whenever you hear the phrase, God is omnipotent, you will immediately think, He can do it. And the scriptures point out that “He ruleth over all the kingdoms of the heathen and nothing is too great for God.” But often…Luther said once, Martin Luther, that our thoughts about God are too human. And I believe that’s true because we rationalize through the way we think God will be and not the way He has revealed Himself.

 

Let me illustrate that with a little humorous situation. Johnny was in Sunday school and he came home and his mom, over lunch, said, “Well Johnny, what did you learn in Sunday School?” He said, “We talked about Moses crossing the Red Sea.” “Really? Well, what happened, Johnny?” “Oh Mom, you would not believe it. They were in captivity with the Egyptians and he broke out all the rifles and everything else and pulled in the tanks, got into the troop carriers and they took off for Israel.” But he said, “They looked back and here came all the Egyptians in the Hummers, the military vehicles, and so they sped up a little more and they got to the Red Sea and they didn’t know what to do. So they called in the Core of Engineers, Mom. And they went and built a pontoon bridge all the way across the Red Sea. And they drove everything across and then they put dynamite explosives all over. And as soon as the Egyptians got half way across, Moses ordered that it be blown up and they pushed the lever and they blew up all the Egyptians and the Israelites were saved.” And the mother says, “Johnny is that really what they taught you?” “No Mom, but if I told it to you the way they told it to us, you’d never believe it.” And you know so often we try to do that. We try to rationalize away who God is and how powerful He is. 

 

The Bible says that God is omnipotent. He can do it. He spoke to nothing and something came into existence. Now how does this affect us in our personal life and walk with Christ?

One, it allows me to pray for the impossible. It allows me to pray for things that I would never dream of praying for if I didn’t know He can do it. He is omnipotent. Second, when you are really tired, He gives strength to the weary.  It was first brought home to my attention, a number of years ago I was speaking at a conference, a very large one, and I had had two solid weeks of heavy meetings and the week before a true revival broke out and I was exhausted. I sat there that Saturday morning and I started to cry. I just said, God, I can’t do it. I am so exhausted. I cannot, I don’t even have the energy to get up out of this chair and walk to that podium let alone give an hour talk. And I just said, “God, please help me.” This might be just some little thing to someone, it was big to me. They were introducing me and as they were going through the introduction, I just said, “I can’t do it.” Something happened when they started to applaud and they said, “Here’s Josh McDowell.” I cannot explain it, strength came into me, I stood up, and I walked to that podium and probably exerted almost more energy for one hour than I ever have in a talk. And I remember later, I said, “God, I can’t believe it. But you are able.” And I cannot tell you how many times in my life, I have had to call upon that strength. He is able. And then, I think because we know that He can do it, when we face what appear to be insurmountable problems we need the Holy Spirit to recall to our minds, He is omnipotent. He is able. He can do it. And I think it gives you a different attitude in facing what appear to be insurmountable problems. He is able.