Your 100 Day Prayer: Day 96 – By His Spirit

by TJ Bates

“Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says the Lord Almighty.
-Zechariah 4:6

When we celebrate the miracle of Christ’s Resurrection, this verse is a good reminder of how God’s work is accomplished.

“Countless preachers and missionaries have launched their ministries with this passage as their life theme. It’s pretty straightforward. God tells his people through the prophet Zechariah that if they’re going to accomplish anything in his name, it will be not on their own strength or through human devices but by the power of his Spirit. And this is exactly what people have found through the ages.

If we don’t get this one right, we won’t do a single thing of any lasting value. It is by the power of God and his wisdom, not ours, that something important and pleasing to God is done. He can; we can’t. He will; we won’t. Often he allows us to try and fail just so that we’ll get the point. The worse our failure, the clearer and longer lasting the lesson. But if he does allow us to fail miserably, it’s not to humiliate us but to teach us that he will do great things through us if we’ll just let him.

So let’s let God be God. Trying to do God’s job for him is just too much work and far too stressful. We were never intended to try. But what a relief and joy for us when we start to see things happen through his power. Joyful, fulfilling ministry begins to take place when we realize that God is not the genie in our bottle but, rather, we are the obedient instruments in his hands.”

TODAY’S PRAYER: Ask God to show you what he wants to teach you through what you are facing, and to use you for his good purpose because of it.

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Photo by Raphaela Hofmann via Flickr