The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb: Searching for Jesus’ Path of Power in a Church that Has Abandoned It

by Jamin Goggin

We are called to be a people of power, certainly, but ours is a kind of power antithetical to the power of the world.

This is the first temptation of power: We view the problem as “out there.” We recognize it in other churches, pastors, fellow Christians, or political and cultural leaders, but we ignore the problem in our own hearts.

We find it much easier to become burdened and angered by sins that are not our own. When those sins are committed by those in leadership, we find it even easier.

We should name sins, just as Jesus did. However, we must recognize that only after naming the truth of our own sin can we come in grace and truth to name the sins of others. Only when we see the truth of ourselves can we have mercy to address others in God’s grace.

Power is a grace of God. And as a grace, it is not generic, but a part of God’s self-giving. Grace is God’s giving of himself to his people, and in Christ, we come to receive the kind of power God offers: the power of the cross.

Power is the capacity to affect reality. We human beings have the capacity to physically, emotionally, and spiritually influence the world around us. God has given us this capacity for good—to glorify him and bless the world. But as Christians, our primary interest is not simply in affecting reality. Our primary interest is to bear fruit of the kingdom—the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22–23).

We were not created to pursue power as an end in itself, but rather to pursue God, the powerful one, and abide in his power to bless the world.

wisdom is to be desired and that it has one source, God,

Wisdom is not essentially about making right decisions, but about living by the power of God in Christ Jesus.

The way from above is power for love.

James warns us of this very reality. He tells us that the way from below masquerades as the way from above. This is worldliness pretending to be wisdom.

The question we must face is whether we will abide in the way of Jesus—continuing to trust in him—or return to the way of Adam.

“Abide in my love” (v. 9). And so we see that the way from above is power from love and for love.

love directs our attention to God himself,

love and power are not mutuall...

What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic.

the way of Jesus is power in love:

Outward fruit is not a guarantee that a heart is truly abiding in God. And such fruit does us no good at all (1 Cor. 13:1–3).

True kingdom fruit is both internal and external. God seeks to make good trees that produce good fruit.

God calls us to produce fruit from the heart and to participate genuinely in his work in the world.

The way from above is power from God and power for God; it is a power known in our weakness and expressed in love. The other way of power, the way from below, seeks power from within and pursues power as an end in itself.

is that the way from below appears so wise. The path is wide, the companions are many, and the destination seems desirable. The road less traveled is less traveled for a reason. Our feet are trained to find paths of self-achievement and self-glorification.

the church is called to strip us bare of our deep-seated desire to self-fulfill, to call us to repentance, and to invite us to die so that we may have eternal life in Christ alone.

who had embraced their weakness, depended upon God’s power, and lived a life of love for decades of fruitful ministry.

Our culture proclaims that the mountaintop is the land of flourishing and is the place of life. But this is all a ruse. These mountaintops are dry, parched land. Mountaintops are lonely, windswept places where vegetation is dwarfed and gnarled. We ascend the mountain expecting to find the pinnacle of flourishing at the top, but instead we discover a place inhospitable for life. God invites us into the valley. The question is whether we will accept the invitation. The valley will always be in the shadow of the mountains. The mountains, with their dramatic peaks and pillars to the clouds, will always appear more special to the world around you. Becoming a valley is truly humbling. And yet this is the place where the rain soaks deep and fruit is truly produced. The valley is the place of life. It is the place of kingdom power.

Kingdom power is from God (through our abiding in Christ) and for love (as it is for God and his glory). In his missive to the Colossians, Paul encourages believers to work “not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.

If our source is ourselves rather than God, it will be straw that is burned up by fire; if our purpose is other than God’s purpose—love and his glory—then it too will burn. But only the last day will truly reveal these things.

Paul assumes that faithfulness will lead us to question if any of our work matters or makes any ultimate difference, because Paul knows that the way of Christ runs contrary to the way of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Like silence and solitude, which can cause our hearts to run wild and our minds to feel restless and anxious, following Christ’s way can reveal deep idolatries of the flesh. We assume faithfulness will “feel” a certain way, but what we often experience is ourselves and our own sin, and not the excitement we were looking for. We also tend to assume that faithfulness will bear fruit immediately, and when it doesn’t, we begin to question our path. Do not grow weary. If we sow to the Spirit, we will reap in the Spirit.

We forget that influence and popularity are not intrinsically good. We do not notice that we are becoming like the idols in our lives, and that the rituals of God’s family are boring and lack meaning for us. But this kind of numbing will always be the fruit of idolatry. In our calling to be fruitful for the kingdom of God, we must discern the way of God (Eph. 5:10), so we must be the kinds of people who can discern this way (Heb. 5:11–14).

In the wilderness, we discover that we, too, learn obedience through suffering, and that if we embrace the way from above and its movement of heart and life, we will suffer in the very place we don’t expect—in the church.

However, to reject the reality of suffering is just that: a rejection of reality. It is also a refusal to embrace another means by which God invites us ever deeper into his way of love. A rejection of suffering is a rejection of weakness and vulnerability in relationship with God.