In 1972 Van Morrison recorded the song “You’ve Got the Power” and people have continued to believe it ever since. We want to believe that we have the power to overcome every challenge in life. The problem is we try to do it without God. And when people take over, things go downhill. When an individual thinks they can do it on their own, and that they are the most important person in their world, we call it narcissism. We don’t like being around these people because they are oblivious to anyone else’s needs. They walk through life as if everyone else just isn’t important.
Jesus seems to be the opposite of this. He never looked out for His own interests, but looked out for the interests of others. After healing a man crippled for thirty eight years, He has to defend His actions because He did it on the Sabbath, their day of worship. But in the process of defending, He reveals even more aspects of His power. Not only can He heal a man crippled for thirty eight years, but He does everything attributed to God. He says that He can raise the dead back to life (and later he does it).
In Revelation 1:8 states that He not only is eternal, but in a clear reference to His deity, He says that He is “the Almighty.” During His ministry He had power over demons, disease, death, and the nature. These miracles were seen by those who witnessed them as proof of His deity. The writers of the Scriptures makes statements the His power is something unique to God.
So, you might ask, if Jesus has all this power, why does He not use it to prevent disease and death. There is so much that needs to be fixed, just fix it. Timing! It is all about timing. We live in a world destroyed by sin. Until sin is removed, any fix would be only temporary and only partial. One day, all that is broken will be fixed, because sin itself will be removed, along with all the results of sin.
We bid on several houses lately and were outbid by someone with two billion dollars to invest in real estate. This investor was buying up all the homes on the market. They must have felt that the timing was right to buy the properties, that their investment would pay off. They sensed something in the market that signaled the time was right. And I am sure it was. As soon as they arrived in town, if you wanted a house, you had to outbid them, forcing the price of available homes up. With limited houses available, the remaining ones were almost guaranteed to be more expensive since more people would be looking to buy fewer homes. Timing.
Jesus does use His power, but not at our timing, at His.
The Arnold Journey 