Many people today – including God’s born again children – have misguided ideas of what is required for the power of God to be on display or manifest. Take an exercise like preaching. People have expectations at times that certain things have to happen or else preaching is not present. Maybe it’s the way the man speaks, the way he moves, or some other ancillary factor. What makes preaching preaching plain and simple is the power of God being present to accompany and lift the message, messenger, and the hearers. How does that look? What markers should carry the day for us to say that the power of God was present with us? In Luke 5:17 we read of a scene where the power of the Lord was present. What was the scene? Jesus sitting in the midst of a group teaching. Later, He does heal a crippled man who is brought to Him manifesting the power in a different way, but the power was present in the midst before the crippled man and his friends arrived.
Person not Circumstance: Simply put, the presence of God’s power is tied to a Person not a circumstance. All the ways people think that power comes and is manifest – thunderings, quakings, fire, etc. – are mere circumstances to what the power actually is. The power is the Person of Christ not extraneous events. When Elijah called fire down from heaven on Mount Carmel, the power wasn’t the fire, it was the One who directed the fire. When that happened, the very next chapter sees that same man Elijah in a cave experiencing not only a fire but also a great wind and earthquake. However, the Lord was in none of those “mighty” events. Sometimes He is. I can prove He’s in winds (east wind rolled back the Red Sea), just as He’s in fire (the previous chapter on Mount Carmel), as well as earthquakes (the earth swallowing Korah, Dathan, and their company). But those events in and of themselves do not constitute the power of God being present.
A Common MOA: When people talk about God and how He moves, much of the time, they are talking about the extraordinary events. What is God’s common mode of action (MOA)? Elijah also experienced a still, small voice in the cave. God was in that, and I submit He is the only One who can and is in such a mode. All other voices aren’t still. Still things have no voice. But God can speak in a voice that is still that resonates down in the soul and lives of His children. When He is teaching in the house in Luke 5:17, many of the people standing by watching Him didn’t see what was occurring. The doctors and Pharisees were observing from the seat of the scornful rather than seeing power come forth. The reason I know that with assuredness is because when the crippled man was healed later, they questioned what He did and His authority. No matter the outward circumstances, God’s common MOA with us and being present with us is the still small voice that He alone inhabits.
Seen and Unseen: When people think about the power of God that they have seen, again they are generally talking about extraordinary events. God’s power being present with His children is a regular occurrence. Paul said on Mars Hill in Acts 17 that He is not very far from every one of us. His presence in the house was sufficient, but the fact that He was teaching shows that the power present was being manifest on that occasion. He is with the church, but the preaching of the gsopel shows that His power is present with us. However, it was there before, we just didn’t see or recognize it correctly because it seems so “ordinary.” The fact that an ordinary day doesn’t spin out of control is a testament to the power of God being present. If He were not present, sin and wickedness would have had the mastery over this globe long ago. He still holds it in His hand. His providence, His goodness, and His ultimate purpose for the destiny of His family is ever before Him. Nothing will undo that. Nothing can change a single promise He ever made. What seems so ordinary is ordinary because His power is present. The fact that the sun comes up every morning to chase away the night and darkness is a sign every day that His promises are true and His mercies still new. What we “see” when it is manifest to us at times will depend on how much we see Him in the regular every-day events.
When you think of your life and your walk with God, there are moments that are going to rise prominently like peaks in a mountain range. However, those peaks are not the whole constitution of those rocks and mountains. Like a marriage, couples can remember the “big” moments in their marriages, but those big moments are made from a lot of smaller moments being present with each other. They stack together and form those big and lasting events and memories. We don’t think a lot about the meals we’ve shared, the bills we’ve paid, and the other mundane things we’ve done together. However, we remember when we’ve laughed and cried together. So our relationship with God is that we remember how we’ve laughed and wept together, but may we take note of the other events to know that the power of God is present with us whether we see something major or regular.