Focus: Actualize Your Potential!

Text: Eph.3:20

"Now unto him that is ABLE to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, ACCORDING to the POWER that worketh IN us."

Potential is an inherent capacity and it speaks of a man's future possibility or that which lies beyond the actual. A person of potential is a wonder about to be unveiled. He is capable of springing up sweet surprises any moment. He is capable of shocking his world positively. Potential is a hidden power in a man and it makes him a person of enormous possibility.

I present to you the man called Gideon in the Bible. The Lord God met Gideon by a winepress in Ophrah, where he was hiding in fear from the Midianites. We read in the book of Judges 6, that "Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to HIDE it from the Midianites." He was cowering in fear of the enemy. He felt powerless and helpless in the face of their current predicament. The people of Israel were utterly impoverished by their enemies. 

The first thing we notice about Gideon is timidity in the face of a superior power, as it were. Then the Lord steps in to save the situation, and declares His intention to use him for the job, but Gideon cuts in, and says to the Lord, "Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house" (Judg.6:15). Next to timidity is that Gideon sees himself as a nobody and a misfit for the job of saving his people from their dreaded foes. Gideon is letting the obvious keep him from a possible wonder. He needed to know that facts are subject to change. 

Gideon lacks the third eye or the eye that sees the invisible. His assessment of himself is based solely on the obvious or actual, not on the possible. He writes himself off. He sees himself as ineligible for the task God has in mind for him. The poverty of his family has given him a mentality. In his father's house he sees himself as the least important person. But beyond his personal feelings of weakness and unworthiness, the angel of the LORD says to him, "The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour" (Judg.6:12). Gideon says one thing about himself, and Gideon's God says another. In essence, God says to him, 'You are a mighty man of valor!' God sees Gideon as a powerful man of invincible force. God sees him as a man of means - a person of great potential. Furthermore, God says to him, "Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?" (Judg.6:14). And as if that is not enough, God declares with emphasis and certainty, "Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man" (Judg.6:16). Gideon unknowingly possesses in him the power to crush the massive army of Midian like they were just one soldier. 

Gideon is unaware of the power he possesses. In him lodges and surges the ability of God to achieve great victory for God's people.

Now see this! When the time to fight came, we read, "The Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon…" (Judg.6:34). Remember God describing him as a "mighty man of valour"? That was his inherent or hidden power - the power at work in him. And now the Spirit of God comes upon him. That is the external power of God coming upon him, calling up and stirring up the power within him. The power from the outside comes to draw out the hidden energy inside of him, enabling him and making it possible for him to actualize the incredible. The external and internal powers integrate with each other, and collaborate to achieve divine destiny.

I tell you: your potential is a hidden ability in you that waits to be discovered in order to be realized, and to utilize and actualize it, it requires that you tap into the limitless resources of God.

It is power waiting to be discovered, utilized and actualized. It is also power that others can tap into. Jesus Christ said, "Virtue has gone out of me." The woman of issue of blood tapped into it and got healed. She connected to Christ and collected from Him.

Your potential when actualized makes you a wonder to behold. Those who wrote you off will be shocked at what you have become or accomplished. I say to you with all authority and audacity that you can actualize your potential. I make bold to declare that you are a person of great possibilities.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter