All power is given unto Me, in heaven and in earth.
—Matthew 28:18
Before Christ gave His disciples their Great Commission to begin the great world conquest that aimed to bring His gospel to every creature, He first revealed Himself in His divine power as a partner with God Himself, the Almighty One. It was their faith in this that enabled the disciples to undertake the work in all simplicity and boldness. They had begun to know Him in the mighty resurrection power that had conquered sin and death; there was nothing too great for Him to command or for them to undertake.
Every disciple of Jesus Christ who desires to take part in “the victory that overcometh the world” (1 John 5:4) needs time, faith, and the Holy Spirit. These things are needed so that he may come under the full conviction that he is to take his part in the work as a servant of the omnipotent Lord Jesus. He is to depend on the daily experience of being “strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might” (Ephesians 6:10). God’s promises give us the courage to unquestioningly obey His commands.
Just think of what the disciples had learned of the power of Christ Jesus here on earth. And yet that was such a little thing as compared with the greater works that He was now to do in and through them. (See John 14:12.) He has the power to work even in the feeblest of His servants with the strength of the almighty God. He has power even to use their apparent powerlessness to carry out His purposes. He has the power over every enemy and every human heart, over every difficulty and danger.
But let us remember that this power is never meant to be experienced as if it were our own. Only as Jesus Christ lives, dwells, and works with His divine energy in our own hearts can there be any power in our preaching as a personal testimony. It was when Christ had said to Paul, “My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9), that Paul could say what he never learned to say before: “When I am weak, then am I strong” (verse 10).
The disciple of Christ who fully understands that all power has been entrusted to Christ, to be received from Him hour by hour, is the disciple who will feel the need and experience the power of these precious words: “Lo, I [the Almighty One] am with you alway[s]” (Matthew 28:20).