He is able

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us. Ephesians 3:20

 “Is there anything too hard for the Lord?” Some three times, that question is asked in Scripture. But how would you answer it? Today we are faced with a quandary. Either we nod our heads and say, “Yes! God can do anything,” unsure of whether we really believe this, or else we are confronted with empty hands and hearts, wondering why God didn’t step in and reverse some troublesome situations confronting us.

For a moment, let’s look at God through the eyes of Paul. He said first that God is able. At first glance, the verb is able seems incomplete. You have to follow it with something. You say, “My company is able to compete” or “That person is able to make good on his word.” It is always followed by something that qualifies the ability of someone or something to perform or do something.

Yet Paul was stressing the all-sufficiency of God Himself. Unlike ourselves, God isn’t limited or restricted by time, space and human limitations. That’s why He is God and we are finite. We are limited by geography and space but God knows no such limits. And certainly there is a limit to what the best of us can do.

When Paul stressed God’s sufficiency, he said it is limited by only two things: what you ask for, and what you envision or imagine, and that leaves out about nothing.

Yes, it’s true that the Bible gives us parameters of what to pray for and how God answers but here He says, “Trust me. See if I will not respond on your behalf. Reach out and ask for a large measure, that your joy may be full.”

He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”