My God is a Kung Fu Fighter…

Don’t you just love all the names of God? Jehovah Nissi, The Great I Am, Strong Deliverer. Isn’t there something about speaking His Name that brings great joy and excitement? Having been around Christian culture for more than twenty years, I have become saturated with various names for God. God is Omnipotent, Victorious One, Alpha and Omega. Jesus is our Prince of Peace, Lamb of God, Coming King. We each have our favorites that remind us of a particular experience we’ve had with God when he revealed himself to us in one of these ways. I’ll never forget the time I felt God leading me to participate in a long term mission project yet I did not have the finances to be able to commit. After much prayer, within a short period of time money began to pour in along with loving letters of support from unexpected sources. God revealed himself to me as Jehovah Jireh – God our Provider.

Today I have a new favorite name for God that I’d like to share. It’s a name I had never heard before. I propose to you that My God is a Kung Fu Fighter.

You see, a couple of months ago, my seven year old son, Jack, was in his Bible Study class. The bible story was about David and Goliath. The teachers were discussing with the children the difference between human power and God’s power. They were given a worksheet where on one side of the page they were to draw a picture of something they could do in their own power. Jack drew a picture of himself swinging across monkey bars. This represented something he could do in his own strength.

On the opposite page the children were instructed to draw something that, in their seven-year-old minds, represented God’s power to them. You probably guessed by now, Jack drew Jesus in a Kung Fu Fighter’s uniform doing a giant karate chop. Not only that, but the entire page was then filled with countless “a’s” coming from Jesus mouth as though he were chanting “Waaaaaaaa” as he flew through the air in Kung Fu mode! At the top of his picture he titled it, My God is a Kung Fu Fighter.

This picture really struck me. As Christian leaders we face a conflict – leading in worldly wisdom or prolific power. Paul explains what this means in 1 Corinthians 2:4-5, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.” Paul had the pedigree for worldly wisdom. Like many of us, he had the experience and the power to persuade people to see things his way. Why did he choose God’s prolific power over his worldly wisdom? Why should we? As it says in verse five, so that those we are leading will have faith that rests on God – not man.

We’ve seen what happens eventually when Christian leadership rests on worldly wisdom. People follow a certain teaching or a certain figure head instead of following after God alone. Over time, theories and teachers will fail but God’s power will remain. We must make sure those who follow us are being led straight to the Lord’s throne versus our own agendas.

How do we do this? We’ve got to “Get our Kung Fu up”! We’ve got to: HONE OUR SKILLS and SURRENDER OUR WILLS. We’ve got to do both of these together. If we only hone our skills, that leads to worldly wisdom. We must also surrender our wills to God. What does this look like? We must: Get on our knees, Get in the Word and Get on the phone.

To Get on Our Knees means we embrace the gifts God has given us yet we surrender them back to him daily. Our gifts and abilities are for his glory, not our own. To Get in the Word means we read and study God’s Word daily and ask the Holy Spirit to use it to transform our lives into the likeness of Jesus. To Get on the Phone means we surround ourselves with a small group of same-gender friends who will hold our feet to the fire (accountability) and commit to pray for us.

The only way to stay clear of worldly wisdom and stay plugged in to God’s prolific power is to “Get our kung fu up” – hone our skills and surrender our wills. As we nurture and use the gifts God has given us and as we surrender to God’s power and authority in our lives, we will see the power of God at work. Remember, we don’t want to settle for worldly wisdom. We want to see God do amazing things in his prolific power. This is a God to gives sight to the blind and sets captives free! He is no weak, feeble, lifeless god. He is Omnipotent and Mighty, because after all…our God is a Kung Fu Fighter.