The Pathway To Power

“THE PATHWAY TO POWER” Gal 2:20

There is nothing that attracts the attention of the Lord like emptiness

There is a natural law that nothing remains empty, it must be filled, It will be filled.

That introduces 3 very important points

#1 Emptiness is a choice

#2 We will be filled

#3 What we are filled with is up to us.

Since nothing can remain empty we realize that this condition must be intentional, we must by a deliberate act of our wills choose to be emptied, and to empty ourselves.

In our story we do not know what various things may have filled the many vessels that were borrowed, all we do know is that under Gods command they were of no use to him until they were first of all (empty).

Regardless of the condition they were found in, regardless of what purpose they had served before. Empty was the required condition.

Empty: Having nothing inside, Hollow, To be of no worth, no significance, Meaningless, Lifeless, Void.

This emptiness we’re speaking of is a heart condition,

it’s an attitude and disposition of the heart that places the entire life before God as weak.. and hopeless, and helpless, and powerless.

It is a life wholly given up to God

It is a life that is totally sustained by God.

The only life that can be wholly sustained by God is the Life that is wholly given up to God.

The branch draws it’s life from the vine when it ceases to live for itself, and lives to bring glory and honor to the vine.

Against Israel’s enemy God chose a very foolish weapon

(A Clay Pot and a Candle)

Jud 7:16 And he –Gideon divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet in every man’s hand, with empty pitchers, and lamps within the pitchers.

No swords, spears, knives, or even shields.

Just a trumpet, a clay pot and a candle.

Jud 7:20 And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal: and they cried, The sword of the LORD, and of Gideon.

What was it that made the pitcher valuable to Gods purpose?

Not their beauty, not their particular shape or design, not what they had done in the past,

Not whose house they had come from, Not because they were made out of silver or brass or Gold,

What made them valuable to God’s purpose is the same thing that makes us valuable to him today……………

#1 they were available

#2 they were empty.= Fill- able

#3 they were breakable.

*We are too often only available for what we want

*Too full of what we like

*Too proud of having it together to be broken

Ga 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

*The Cross is the key to receiving Power, The Power of the Holy Spirit can only come to the one who has fully entered into the power of the cross.

The cross is not for sin but for self

Yes Jesus death and substitutionary sacrifice was to deliver us from the power of sin.

* But the cross was not a substitutional act, We all must experience in ourselves the full weight of the cross,

The cross is Gods death sentence not only toward sin, but upon the self life.

*The self life keeps us from experiencing the Power of God.

The Power of God is nothing more than the Life of Christ being manifested in the place of the self life.

Only as the branch gives up its own life can it be sustained and empowered by the life of the vine and produce the fruits of righteousness that glorify God and not the fruits of the efforts of self that produce self righteousness and glorify self.

*When we quit trying and start trusting, and quit wrestling and start nestling we will experience the power of the Christ Life.

Jacob did not prevail over the angel in his strength but in his weakness, Just as Jacob was smote in the thigh = the strength of the self-life, So the cross smites us in our thigh = the strength of the self life.

The cross exposes the self life to be an enemy of God, The self life asserts that through self efforts and good works it can achieve right standing with God, Therefore it makes the work of Christ of none effect and removes the necessity for Grace.

The cross tells us that we are = The self life (good for nothing, therefore we can do nothing good,) The only thing we = self is good for is to be crucified and buried.