In this moment, my heart is full and I’m just sitting at my desk in awe of God. Not because the virus has gone away. (It hasn’t.)  Not because all humanity has figured out how to treat each other with respect, love and kindness. (They haven’t.) Not because all the nations of the world are governed by wise leaders who care first and foremost for the well-being of all their citizens. (We aren’t quite there yet.) My heart is full in this moment because Ephesians 1:18-21 took my eyes off immediate problems and refocused them on “bigger-picture” power…God’s power… available to me and to everyone who follows Jesus.

God’s power displayed through Jesus
To avoid any confusion caused by reading God and Jesus as if they are two different beings, Christians speak of God as one God in three “persons,” for lack of a better word. There is only one God. However, God includes God the Father (planner of creation and of the salvation of believing people), Jesus the Son (the “instrument” used by the Father — such as God’s Word that brought forth all created things and the God-man who died on the cross to save people), and the Holy Spirit (whom I think of as the invisible power of God — hovering over the waters at creation and strengthening Jesus to complete His work on the cross). All three — God, Jesus and Holy Spirit — are fully God and work together in perfect unity.

So back to God’s “bigger-picture” power displayed in Jesus — the Son, who died on the cross.  How strong was that power? Ephesians 1:19-20 speaks of God’s “incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of His mighty strength which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.” It’s easy to think of God’s power working to bring Jesus from death to life, which is an amazing, miraculous thing in itself. Yet as big as the chasm between death and life is, Jesus’ real journey and the power that enabled it was even greater.

Starting on the cross, Jesus actually went from a place lower than death and ended up in a place much higher than what we think of as everyday life. Jesus was sinless, unlike regular people. He had never known shame or guilt or the feeling of having messed up and being distant from God, His heavenly Father. Jesus was perfect. That was the point. The wages of sin is death. Sin earns death. Someone had to pay for all the wrong things all people had done (and are doing right now and will do) throughout time, or all people would be doomed to spend eternity apart from the loving God who created them for tender, close relationship with Him. So Jesus went to the cross still in a perfect love relationship with the Father, but there was a moment on the cross where Jesus hit an all-time low — lower than death.

Starting on the cross, Jesus actually went from a place lower than death and ended up in a place much higher than what we think of as life.

It happened in the hours between noon and 3PM. From a thick, physical darkness that covered the land, Jesus cried out, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In that moment, Jesus bore the sin of all humanity. Scripture tells us He “became sin who knew no sin.” All our sin for all time was placed on His shoulders and the holy Father God, who can’t be connected to sin in any way, had to do something drastic. He let His Son suffer eternal punishment for all that sin. A contemporary Christian song says it this way. “How great the pain of searing loss. The Father turns His face away….Behold the man upon the cross. My sin upon His shoulders.” That was the place that was lower than death, separation from the Father. Each person who rejects Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for their sin will still suffer that dreadful, dark separation from God and punishment for their sin forever. But that does not have to be your eternity. Jesus was and is infinite God, not limited by time or space, so He took the full eternal punishment of all who believe in that marked span of time when the Father turned His face away. In that lowest of low moments, Jesus made possible a new eternity for all who believe.

Of course, Jesus didn’t stay in that low place. And He didn’t just come back to continue life on earth as we know it, only to die again like Lazarus, (though Jesus did hang out here for awhile so everyone would know He was alive.) No, that incomparable power of God ultimately brought Jesus to a much higher place as we can see going on in Ephesians 1:20 — “That power…which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.” That incomparable power took Jesus from the lowest low of being scorned by God all the way up to God’s throne room! And God does the same for all who believe in Jesus as Savior.

That incomparable power took Jesus from the lowest low of being being scorned by God up to God’s throne room!

God’s power displayed to me
Unlike Jesus, I was not (and still am not) sinless. Aside from being born a sinner like every human, I got really good at doing what I wanted (often opposite of what God wanted) and I even spent years running away from Him. It’s not hard to see that I was separated from God, but even in that low and broken place God still extended protection and help to me. I certainly didn’t deserve it. God just kept pouring out love and grace, like an incredibly patient parent creating and enforcing safe boundaries until the troubled child decides to obey and live in the close, loving relationship for which she was created. I know now that what I was thinking, saying and doing in the days before I turned to Him was all detestable to God. I was familiar with the idea of Jesus dying on the cross, but had decided that I was too busy to care. If I had died during that time, God (who is not only perfectly holy, but perfectly just) would have had no recourse except to send me to eternal punishment because I had chosen not to pay attention and accept the sacrificial gift of Jesus paying for my sins on the cross. That is about as low as it gets.

If I had died during that time, God (who is not only perfectly holy, but perfectly just) would have had no recourse except to send me to eternal punishment because I had decided not to pay attention and accept the sacrificial gift of Jesus paying for my sins on the cross.

ENTER: The incomparable power of God in my life. God didn’t leave me there. He let me fall into crisis so that I would realize how low I really was. My world collapsed as all the things I had wrongly built my life around crumbled. When I finally took my eyes of myself and looked up to Him for help, He was right there — ready to prove that His incomparable power was able to lift me up from the lowest low to the highest high. Suddenly, I saw that the cross was for me. I prayed and confessed my sins and Jesus forgave them. I breathed in the assurance of eternity in Heaven with the God who loved me enough to give His life for me. I felt weight lifted off my shoulders, saw life begin to make sense and discovered that I had a divinely-assigned purpose in living. Talk about going from low to high, but that’s not all.

God’s incomparable power ultimately promises to take all who believe in Jesus as Savior to where Jesus is now, the Father’s very presence. Speaking in past tense because this highest high is such a sure thing, Ephesians 2:6 says, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms…” How high is this high? Look at this description from Revelation 21:3-4. “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

THAT is the incomparable power of God, the only power with strength enough to rescue the believer from the lowest pit and sweep him or her up to the highest place, the throne room of Heaven, treasured by holy God, Himself. This incomparable power takes people from the pit to the pinnacle, from an eternity of destruction to an eternity of perfection. My heart is full as I ponder the incomparable power of God available to you and to me. I pray that in this moment your heart is full, too, because you have already called out to Jesus as Lord and are already experiencing the incomparable power of God in your life. If not, it’s not too late. Jesus’ hand is extended to you right now from the throne room of God the Father. Take hold. Ask Him to be your Savior and begin to live in His incomparable power right now. And if Jesus already is your Savior, then look with fresh eyes at His incomparable power at work in you. Call out to Him for help. God is still in the business of “lifting up,” whether from sin or sickness, from crumbling relationships or self-esteem, from fear or feeling too faint to take on the task He has given. When we are weak, He makes us strong with His incomparable power.