Scripture: "All power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth."— MATT, xxviii. 18.
Before Christ gave His disciples their Great Commission to begin that great world conquest which should aim at bringing His Gospel to every creature. He first revealed Himself in His divine power as a partner with God Himself, the Almighty One. It was the faith of this that enabled the disciples to undertake the work in all simplicity and boldness. They had begun to know Him in that mighty resurrection power, which had conquered sin and death; there was nothing too great for Him to command or for them to undertake.
Every disciple of Jesus Christ who desires to take part in the victory that overcometh the world needs time, and faith, and the Holy Spirit, to come under the full conviction that it is as the servant of the omnipotent Lord Jesus that he is to take his part in the work. He is to count literally upon the daily experience of being "strong in the Lord and in the power of His might." The word of promise gives the courage to obey implicitly the word of command.
Just think of what the disciples had learned to know of the power of Christ Jesus here on earth. And yet that was but a little thing as compared with the greater works that He was now to do in and through them. He has the power to work even in the feeblest of His servants with the strength of the Almighty God. He has power even to use their apparent impotence to carry out His purposes. He has the power over every enemy and every human heart, over every difficulty and danger.
But let us remember that this power is never meant to be experienced as if it were our own. It is only as Jesus Christ as a living Person dwells and works with His divine energy in our own heart and life that there can be power in our preaching as a personal testimony. It was when Christ had said to Paul, "My strength is made perfect in weakness," that he could say, what he never learned to say before, "When I am weak, then am I strong." It is the disciple of Christ who understands aright that all the power has been entrusted to Him, to be received from Him hour by hour, who will feel the need and experience the power of that precious word: "Lo, I am with you alway." the Almighty One.
