GOD'S AWESOME POWER

Most of us dreamt of becoming a superhero having awesome powers. We fantasized about having the capacities to be invisible, time travel, fly, superhuman speed, immortal, control over the four elements of the universe, teleportation, etc. The lists can go on.   

The world today seems to be obsessed with superheroes and superpowers probably because of the super problems that overwhelm us like poverty, criminality and all maladies of the society. 

In the gospel (Mark 11:11-26), Christ showed His tremendous power for His awesome mission. 

In plain words He uttered, a fig tree can wither. He did so not so much because He was hungry as observed by his apostles. Why would He demand fig fruits when it was not yet their season? He did so to demonstrate the enormous power He possesses over the entire creation, after all, He is God. And so if He so desires, in just a flick of a finger He can annihilate all sinful men who never bear desirable fruits for the Father. He could have destroyed in an instance those who had made the Temple impure. With His awesome powers being the God, Christ chose a peculiar way to manifest His power and its very purpose fully. Christ chose the way of the cross. He freely walked into Jerusalem where He embraced His passion and death through the cross. Through the cross, Christ, the powerful who can command a fig tree to wither, hanged. Through the cross, Christ manifested His power fully and fulfilled its purpose. Through the cross, Christ defeated sin and death. 

Through the way of the cross He chose, Christ made manifest His power and defeated man's greatest enemy; sin and death. He did so that he may impart to us great power. Each one of you has received a special grace (1 Pt 4:11); the power of faith in God, the faith that can pull up and throw mountains into the sea; the faith through which nothing is impossible for the Giver, Christ himself, had conquered everything. We the receiver simply ought to believe in His power. 

How often do we rely on God's awesome power? How does our faith in God sustain us? Or do we look for other powers that can fulfill our desires? Do we rely more on our own strength than on Christ's?  Paul says: I can do all things [which He has called me to do] through Him who strengthens and empowers me [to fulfill His purpose—I am self-sufficient in Christ's sufficiency; I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace. (Philippians 4:13)

    

In our being Christian, do we have any idea the powers we possess? 

With the faith we have received from Christ, we can move mountains; mountains of poverty and misery, mountains of suffering and confusions. We only ought to believe in the ways that Christ chooses for us; for the ways, He wants to manifest in our lives His power. It may be an unbelievable way, undesirable way like that of the way of the cross, but it is God's way.   

As Christians, we do not need to be superheroes. We just ought to believe, to keep the faith in Him, to be faithful in God's awesome power.