God’s Power, Our Strength

God’s Power, Our Strength, Daily Devotional by Steven Furtick

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. —EPHESIANS 1:18–19

Today’s Bible reading: Ephesians 1:3–23

Do you ever feel like you bounce from one weak moment to another? Life is clicking right along, you’re gaining courage and momentum, then your kid comes home from school with a note from the principal’s office.

Or you think you’ll finally start gaining ground on your debt, when an unexpected trip to the ER cuts your progress off at the knees.

Or you think you’ve finally found the one relationship you’ve been dreaming of your whole life, when that person suddenly gets cold feet or a wandering eye and all those dreams shatter.

And you stare back at the reflection of yourself in the mirror and you see weakness. Loss. Rejection. What you don’t see is power.

How can we miss it—when our God has all the power in the world? It’s because we’ve got to look at our situation with more than just human insight.

Often we have to see, discern, and realize God’s power not with a physical sense but with a deeper awareness. Scripture calls that sense “the eyes of your heart.”

Paul’s prayer for the church echoes the prayer of Elisha for his servant: “Open his eyes” (see 2 Kings 6:8–23). He prayed that the Ephesians would know how the power of God is accessible and available to them as ordinary, average, common believers. People like me. People like you.

Paul’s prayer is not simply that Christians might know how powerful God is, although this is the starting place. Nor does he pray that God would be powerful, because He already is.

Paul doesn’t even pray that we would have more power, because in Christ we already have all the power we need for anything we are facing in our lives. Any circumstance. Every form of opposition we’re ever going to encounter.

When I live by what God says, He opens my eyes to see what He sees. And He sees infinite power and potential in me. And in you. #GreaterBook

Instead, he prays that we would know for ourselves “that power” that “he exerted when he raised Christ”—and that this power would become a mighty strength in our lives.

Why does Paul pray this way? Because he knows the truth: it is possible for God to have all the power and yet for His people to live in total weakness.

Living in strength is all about taking hold of God’s power and exerting it in our lives. But you can’t put it to use if you don’t know it’s there. And you can’t live it out if you’re too focused on your weakness.

We don’t live by what our physical eyes see. We live by what God sees and by what He says. When I live by what He says, He opens my eyes to see what He sees. And He sees infinite power and potential in me. And in you.

PRAYER FOCUS: Take Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians, summarized in Ephesians 1:17–23, and turn it into a first-person (“I”) prayer for yourself.