........TWICE HAVE I HEARD THIS.....

"God has spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongs unto God" (Psalms 62:11). 

Power in any form is transient. You've got to be careful how you wield it. No power is permanent and no one remains permanently powerful. This is not just in the sense of death which brings about the cessation of a person's activities on the earth. We know that when a powerful person dies, his exercise of power significantly dies with him. But beyond that, the reality of life is that man is incapable of exercising power ad infinitum even while he is yet alive. The Creator of man and the owner of power never designed it to be so. Only God, the owner of power is permanently powerful. 

Let us look at physical power for instance. There are people who can lift heavy weights today but will be unable to do same in the next couple of years because they have advanced in age. To advance in age in pretty good health is something good that we all pray for. But this good thing must necessarily be accompanied by a progressive loss of physical strength. Thus the decline in available power is not as a result of your doing something wrong. It is just the way that the Creator has designed it. 

The one that got at me so strongly recently is the realization that even spiritual power does not last forever. I bet this realization will shock many preachers and people of faith as it did me. There are many old preachers today who walked in tremendous spiritual power decades ago, healing the sick, raising the dead, bringing many souls into the kingdom of God, and doing many signs and wonders. Today, they are unable to do all that much again, not because of something that they are doing wrong, but because power on this terrestrial plane is designed to be transient. 

The above thoughts should lead to certain conclusions. First is that power in whatever form we have it is actually given to us in trust; we really do not have any power. If power were to be really ours, we should be able to keep it for as long as we want. Please keep this in mind at all times. Secondly, whatever power you wield, wield it in love. Power must be seen as a tool with which we help others and not an instrument of domination and oppression as it is mostly conceived by the average man. Use the power you have today to communicate love to people around you so that when you no longer have power as you used to have, you can have peace and pleasure. 

Thirdly, wield power with humility because power is never meant to be a status symbol but a symbol of a call to service. Only fools boast of the power they think they possess. If you use the power you have to serve people today, people will serve you tomorrow when you no longer have power. That, I have found, is a permanent fact of life. Finally, never use the power you have to do evil. I repeat, never use the power you are entrusted with to do evil. This is because when you no longer have power, the same evil you have done with your power will turn round to pursue and afflict you till it destroys you.