Beyond Our Capabilities - Living By God's Power, Not our Own

When I read the quote below last Sunday afternoon, it stopped me in my tracks—not only because it was powerful, but because it felt deeply connected to our sermon.

As we spent time in Matthew 5:43–48, we saw one of the clearest examples of that reality as we learned of Jesus' call to love our enemies. I don’t know about you, but I fail daily in my ability to love my friends, family, and neighbors. 

Loving my enemies only raises the challenge.

And as the passage continues, the bar is not lowered. It closes with the call to “be perfect” as our Heavenly Father is perfect. Pastor Arthur explained that Jesus, here, is calling His disciples to a love without artificial limits. This is not a call to moral flawlessness, but to a mature, mercy-shaped love, complete in its direction even if imperfect in its practice. 

This is love formed by grace and by growing in the likeness of Jesus.

Importantly, Jesus does not raise this standard as a threat or a condition for acceptance. He intends for us to connect it to our identity—as sons of our Father who is in heaven. You see, the character of our lives is meant to increasingly reflect God’s own character in visible ways. 

One simple application our pastor offered for this was this question: “What would make me look like my Father right now?”

That question stayed with me as I spent time this week in Colossians 1 on Monday morning.

In Colossians 1:9–14, Paul prays for the church at Colossae—not with shallow requests, but with a vision for a life lived worthy of the Lord. Paul connects this worthy walk God growing His people in the knowledge of God and in the strength that is supplied not by human effort, but by God’s power.

Did you catch that? The passage shows us that it is God who strengthens His people with power. It is His power in us that supplies us with endurance and patience with joy. And when we live like this, the gratitude goes to God alone, because it is clear that He is the One at work in His people. 

And just like in Matthew 5, Paul ties our inspiration for obedience back to our identity. In Matthew, Jesus speaks of us as sons of our Father in heaven; in Colossians, Paul reminds us that we are saints who have been transferred into the Kingdom of the Son and qualified to share in His inheritance.

It is clear: our capacity to walk in a way that is worthy—and to live out the peculiar love of God that reaches even to enemies—grows out of our identity in Him and out of our life abiding in Him.

So, let’s go full circle back to our opening quote: “God’s will for our lives will extend us beyond our own capabilities."

Yet, it is always for a purpose. It is His good plan for us that His power might be at work in our lives, and so that He alone would receive the glory. 

He is glorified when our dependence replaces our self-sufficiency. 

And He is glorified when our lives increasingly resemble the Lord Jesus.

So, only one question remains….

Where is the Lord calling us out of our self-sufficiency and into a life of dependence on His endless strength and glorious might?