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Have you ever heard someone say, "I'm dynamite!"? This is someone who is so full of energy that he/she is a driving, driven person. This is quite typical of the Type-A personality, the super competitive, person.
Here's the good news. You don't have to be a Type-A to be dynamite, bursting with energy and competence. The Apostle Paul says, "... be strong in the Lord and the power of his might" (Eph. 6:10 - KJV). Paul uses three marvelous words of power that we don't naturally have.
I use the King James Version as a quote because it's an easy version to explain. Paul says first of all, "be strong." When A. B. Nobel invented dynamite, he chose this word of Greek origin. It's the Greek word dunamis.
Used by Paul here, it's en + dunamis which means "to be energized or empowered." But Paul is not making just a suggestion. The Greek tense is imperative. The KJV says "be strong." This is an action word, "be empowered," and it is a command.
Type-A personalities have a difficult time distinguishing the energy they naturally feel from the energy they feel from the empowering of God. Whenever I feel driven to do something, I caution myself. My prayer is, God, you know that I'm easily driven to do things like this all by myself. Lord, I'm going to relax and wait until you make it clear that You are empowering me to act.
The source of power is, "in the Lord." It is in Christ that we have this power. And it is by faith that it is activated. Our position as Christians is in Christ. Our possession of this power, like our salvation, is by faith.
This empowerment comes by what Paul describes literally as "the might (kratos) of his strength (ischus). It is in Christ we find by faith the release of His power (enablement). The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (III, p. 907) says that there is no place in the New Testament in which it is said of man that he has or can generate by himself kratos or ischus.
If you want to feel like dynamite, the human version is no more than a fire cracker. In Christ is where you have the real dynamite.
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