If the Christian life is one of power, than it is a power that looks like the costly, self-sacrificial love of Christ displayed on the cross.

1 Corinthians 1:18 the apostle Paul reminds us that “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God”. I love how Eugene Peterson paraphrases this in The Message. The cross “is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out”. 

The temptation every follower of Christ will face is to leverage worldly power to accomplish God’s mission. Falling prey to this temptation is nothing short of disastrous. We loose our identity by getting lost in how we get things done in God’s kingdom. By all means we should be focused on God’s mission, but we must pay close attention to the kind of powers that might lead us away from cross-shaped love.