Back That Chariot Up!

I just have to say how much I love our church and the wonderful people who go there! They are truly like extended family members--we know that someone always has our back and is praying for us, even if they don't know why we need prayer. They are just that committed to community and we are so blessed to be a part of this fellowship.

In my women's class this morning, many ladies were absent because they were on their way back from an encounter retreat--I AM SO JEALOUS! ;) They had a truly blessed time and I am so excited for them. My experiences on the encounter retreats have been life-changing in fantastic ways. God is so good! But I digress...It was a small group of us this morning, just five. Our topic was "self esteem", but it strayed from what we commonly think of as self esteem and delved deeply into the power of God and how He has equipped us with such power...but are we willing to make the effort to tap into it? I can't even tell you how exciting this class session was! Paul wrote that the same power which raised Jesus from the dead has been placed inside of us. Back the truck up, people. Digest that for a minute. For a long minute. As Christians, we know in our heads that the same power Jesus had on earth lives inside of us, but how much do we *truly* understand that? TRULY?

This morning, we read the definitions of two Greek words that Paul used when he talked about our God-given power. The first of these words is "kratos". Kratos means: "Demonstrated power, eruptive and tangible." Think about a bomb--we all have bombs on our minds after last week, right? Think about how that power is burning and exploding inside of whatever vessel is used to create that particular bomb until the force becomes such that the vessel can no longer contain the power! This is essentially kratos, the power God placed inside of us. The second word we discussed was "ischus", which means "ability, force, strength, might". Our lesson likened it to God's muscles. Want to know what I saw when I started to digest this in my spirit? I saw Jesus in hell battling Satan for those three days (ever wonder what THAT looked like?!) with the explosive and tangible power of kratos, while the ischus dwelled in the tomb with his body. I could just see the ischus power swirling around his body in eager anticipation of the fulfilling of prophesy. Then Jesus is done with His battle and His spirit with the kratos power join His body and the ischus power...BOOM!!! Dynamite explosion and resurrection! Now, I'm not saying that's what happened...but it sounds pretty awesome and we know how mighty our God is, so maybe it is! :) Just chew on that power and those thoughts for a while. It's rocking my world and I hope it does yours, too! Happy Sunday, ya'll! ❤