December 24-More Than I Can Imagine

The Mirror of the Word and other works by C.E. White can be purchased on her website, cewhitebooks.com or on Amazon.

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.”

—Ephesians 3:20

He can do far more than we can even imagine, but it’s “according to the power that works within us.”

The Holy Spirit is the “power that works within us,” but 1 Thessalonians 5:19 warns that we can quench the Spirit. When we take that into consideration after looking at today’s verse, we can see that quenching the Spirit will limit what the Lord does in and through us.

But what does quenching the Spirit mean? The flesh is at war with the Spirit: “For the desire of the flesh is against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh” (Galatians 5:17). So we quench the Spirit by setting our minds on—prioritizing—the flesh.

And the “power at work within us” is proportional to the level of submission to Christ: “the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him” (Acts 5:32).

Just like the disciples could not cast out the demons because they could only be cast out by prayer (Mark 9:29), we may be lacking in obedience—whether that be in some task God calls us to, our attitudes, or some unrepented sin—and thereby limiting God’s power and voice in our lives.

The more complete our submission to the Spirit and the less we give in to the desires of the flesh—“sexual immorality, impurity, indecent behavior, idolatry, witchcraft, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these” (Galatians 5:19–22)—the more we will see the Holy Spirit’s power working within us far more abundantly than we can ask or think.

The post December 24-More Than I Can Imagine appeared first on C. E. White.