Many moons ago, I processed cheques for one of the largest banks in Canada. Every work day, I was responsible for balancing the sum total of all cheques deposited to or written on accounts at the the bank I worked for. A half a million cheques could pass through my hands on any given day. Massive machines running at incredible speeds made this work possible. Anyone using these machines had to go through hazardous energy training. (Why this training was introduced after these machines had been used for decades was beyond me.)

What is hazardous energy? According to the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), hazardous energy is any electrical, mechanical, pneumatic, chemical, nuclear, thermal, gravitational, or other energy that can harm people. When a machine was down for maintenance, the hazardous energy program required us to turn off, unplug, and lock out the machines so that they could not be used. Were they going to blow up and kill us all? Unlikely. But, because of maintenance issues, they had the potential to become dangerous until repaired. Because the machines were locked down, the power within simply remained a potential.

Many Christians are liked locked down machines waiting for a repair that we don’t even need. We know that there is potential inside of us, but something has caused us to power down, unplug, and lock out anything that might spark that potential. Just because we’re not sure where that potential may lead us, we often view it as hazardous energy—something to be avoided at all costs.

Yes, everything is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own goodness or my ability to obey God’s law, but I trust Christ to save me. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. As a result, I can really know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead.

Philippians 3:8-10a (NLT)

Our trust, or faith, in Christ unlocks power within us. And not just a little bit of power, but the same mighty power that raised him from the dead. Like a locked-out machine, we sit dormant. Useless. Waiting. But we’re not broken. We’re not in need of maintenance. Rather we need to unlock ourselves and our potential to release the mighty power of Christ that’s just waiting to burst out from us. We need to plug ourselves back into the power source and allow Him to flow through us so that we can do the work we were created to do. We were meant to be effective and productive, working together to accomplish seemingly impossible, daunting tasks.

Satan thought he had locked Jesus out for good and thrown away the key, but the power within Christ was so great, that nothing could hold him back. The same power flows through us. We can either lock ourselves out and simply enjoy the potential access we have to the power source or we can get plugged in and affect change in the world around us.

The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and wonderful results.

James 5:16b (NLT)

Daily Bible reading: Isaiah 37-38, Philippians 3