We have just finished with the celebration of Easter. Easter, for a believer, is a celebration of the divine power of God. The Holy Spirit was the one who raised Jesus from the dead. Romans 8:11 says, “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” The Holy Spirit is known as the Spirit of the power of God. Isaiah prophesied and called the Holy Spirit the spirit of strength in Isaiah 11:2. He said, “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” The Hebrew word that is translated here is geburah. It means strength. Paul calls the Holy Spirit the spirit of power in 2 Timothy 1:7 where he says, “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.” So, we see that the divine power that Peter is talking about is the Holy Spirit.
The same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in the mortal bodies of every believer. His unlimited power is in us and is available to us as believers. There is nothing that can stop us from fulfilling the will of God for our lives. That is the power of the resurrection! Because Jesus paid the price for our sins on the cross and then overcame even the power of death, we walk in His victory.
Peter had that idea in mind when he wrote in 2 Peter 1:3–4, “seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” That divine power that we see in the resurrection also granted us everything that pertains to life and godliness. Just think about that. When the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead, we were also raised with Him. But what that means is we have everything that we will ever need in life given to us by that same Spirit! The word life is the Greek word zōē. That means everything that life needs has already been granted to us.
It also says everything pertaining to godliness. Everything that we need to live a godly life has already been granted to us. We have no good excuse to not live godly lives. We can make excuses but there are no good ones because we have been granted the power to overcome.
Let’s look at this word granted. The Greek word which is translated granted is the word dōreomai. It means to give or to present something. God has already presented to us everything we need to live but also to live godly. Like every gift that God gives we need to receive it. Everything we receive from God we receive by faith or by trusting God that we have it. When we say things like, I cannot do this or that, we are saying that God has not given us the power to do it. Many times, we lean on our own power, strength, or self-will (also known as stubbornness) to overcome. This leads to our ultimate defeat in the area that we are trying to overcome or to a devastating sense of pride in our own abilities. That pride will lead to destruction.
So, as we daily celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, let’s not lose sight of all He has given to us in His resurrection.