Power point presentations

“My favorite definition of power is ‘strength over time',” says Oprah Winfrey, lecturing the women she feels she needs to give her best advice to as the top honoree at a “Women in Entertainment” breakfast in Beverly Hills, Calif. “That means strength times strength times strength times strength equals power. You gotta know who you are.”

“We have to run our own race. We can’t look at what the other guys are doing. When you take time to look back at what the other guys are doing—you lose focus, you lose energy and you lose power when you’re worrying about what someone else is doing. Just focus on yourself.”

***** 

Compare that to what Paul writes in I Thessalonians 1:5: “For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in POWER, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.”

“The power is in the power of God,” explains Jordan. “Paul says in chapter 2, ‘For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which EFFECTUALLY worketh also in you that believe.’

“Jesus says, ‘The flesh profiteth nothing,’ meaning all of OUR wisdom and OUR resources aren’t the issue.

“You got to start there! You never want to glory in yourself: ‘It isn’t me; it’s Him.’

“Jesus said, ‘The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life.' The objective measure of the working of the Spirit of God in your life is God’s Spirit wrote a Book and it’s a physical, tangible, intimate connection between Him and you.

"You never appropriate that into your experience until you need that. If you don't know it, you can't appropriate it.

“The need is, 'Not I but Christ.' You're to constantly be learning this at a different level; that's part of what maturity is all about.

"The words on the pages are the Words of the Spirit and when I believe that Word, and put my faith in it, it WORKS; it becomes energizing activity and life in those who believe.

*****

“Paul writes in II Thessalonians 3:1: ‘Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you.’

“Paul’s saying, ‘I want the Word of the Lord to be set free; to run without obstacles, without needing to stop and be glorified.’

“When you glorify something, you demonstrate how valuable it is; how much of a treasure it is. How important it is.

“How would you glorify the Lord Jesus Christ? How do you demonstrate in your life that you cherish Him—His wisdom, His thinking--more than anybody else?”

(new article tomorrow)