What Does the Power of God Actually Look Like?
Jesus reveals the reach, purpose and restraint of God’s power in the way he uses it.
We all have some idea of what power looks like. We have seen it used by governments, employers, parents and church leaders. Sometimes it has protected people and helped them grow. At other times it has been used to control them. Those experiences can quietly shape what we imagine when we say that God is powerful.
Throughout this series I have been asking what Jesus shows us about the Father. We cannot put that question aside when we come to power. If seeing Jesus is seeing the Father, then the way Jesus uses power belongs at the centre of our understanding of God’s power.
The Reach of His Power
The Gospels do not give us a weak or diminished picture of God. In Mark 4 and 5, Jesus encounters a storm, a man living under the power of evil, a woman who has suffered for years and a family facing the death of a child. These are situations people cannot simply bring under control. Jesus speaks to the wind and sea, frees the man, heals the woman and raises the child.
John tells us that all things were made through the Word who became flesh (John 1:1–3, 14). Paul says that all things were created through Christ and for him, and that in him all things hold together (Colossians 1:15–17). The one who walks into these scenes is not merely borrowing a little power for a difficult moment. The Creator has entered his creation.
That establishes the reach of his authority. But it does not yet tell us the most revealing thing about it.
What Does He Do With It?
Watch the direction in which Jesus’ power moves. The storm is stilled for frightened disciples. The man who had been isolated is restored. The woman who had suffered is addressed with dignity. The child is returned to her family. Elsewhere Jesus uses his authority to forgive, feed and welcome.
He does not need to diminish others in order to display his greatness. His power brings freedom, healing and life. The question is not only, What can Jesus do? It is also, What does he choose to do with what he can do?
This is where our ordinary pictures of power may need to change. We often recognise power when someone wins, commands or gets their way. Jesus shows us authority exercised for the good of others. That does not make his power less real. It shows us what it is for.
The Power He Refuses to Use
There is another side to the picture. At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus is tempted to use his position to satisfy himself, to perform a spectacle and to take a shortcut to the kingdoms of the world (Matthew 4:1–11). He refuses. Later, he does not force those who turn away to follow him. When he is arrested, he does not turn the encounter into a display of overwhelming force.
The cross is the most difficult place to keep looking, because the strength we see there does not resemble the power we often admire. Jesus gives himself for others. His refusal to save himself by abandoning that path is not an absence of power or a failure of God’s purpose. It is love carried through at great cost.
That does not mean God never acts decisively or that we should make suffering sound good. The resurrection will not allow us to treat death as the final word. But Jesus does prevent us from defining divine power merely as the ability to impose an outcome. His power has a purpose, and his restraint is part of its shape.
Power in Our Hands
Most of us hold some kind of power, even if we would not use that word for it. We make decisions that affect a family, a workplace, a classroom or a church. We have knowledge, influence, a voice or responsibility for other people.
Looking at Jesus makes me ask uncomfortable questions about how I use those things. Does my leadership leave people smaller and more dependent, or does it help them grow? Am I using influence to protect myself, or to serve those entrusted to my care? Do I know when to act and when to refrain?
The answers will not always be simple. But Jesus gives us somewhere to begin. We see the reach of God’s power, and then we watch the way he chooses to use it. The more closely we look, the harder it becomes to separate power from compassion, truth, restraint and self-giving love.
What does the power of God actually look like? Look at Jesus when he calms a storm and restores a life. Look at him when he refuses a shortcut. And keep looking, even at the cross. He shows us the Father.