Dyno-MITE!

When I hear the word dynamite I can’t help but see JJ on Good Times exclaiming “dyno-MITE!”  Today we might say “amazing” or “awesome” or “brilliant (if you are from the UK).”  There is actually a long history behind the word dynamite apart from the work of Mr. Nobel.  Before it was a type of explosive, before it was an exclamation on a sitcom, it was this word…Dunamis.

The Greek word Dunamis is defined as (Thayer’s): force (literally or figuratively); specifically miraculous power (usually by implication a miracle itself):—ability, abundance, meaning, might (-ily, -y, -y deed), (worker of) miracle (-s), power, strength, violence, mighty (wonderful) work.

This is what Wiki says about Dunamis: Dunamis is an ordinary Greek word for possibility or capability. Depending on context, it could be translated “potency”, “potential”, “capacity”, “ability”, “power”, “capability”, “strength”, “possibility”, “force” and is the root of modern English words “dynamic”, “dynamite”, and “dynamo”.

Here is the word dunamis as power in a few passages:

Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the Gospel (good news) of Christ, for it is God’s power working unto salvation [for deliverance from eternal death] to everyone who believes with a personal trust and a confident surrender and firm reliance, to the Jew first and also to the Greek (AMP)

Acts 1:8 But you shall receive power (ability, efficiency, and might) when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends (the very bounds) of the earth. (AMP)

Phil 4:13 I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency]. (AMP)

Check out this what Philippians 4:12-13 says in the Passion Translation:

Phil 4:13 I know what it means to lack, and I know what it means to experience overwhelming abundance. For I’m trained in the secret of overcoming all things, whether in fullness or in hunger. And I find that the strength of Christ’s explosive power infuses me to conquer every difficulty. (The Passion Translation)

I really want explosive power that infuses me, how about you?

You may have been taught all kinds of stuff about how we don’t have His power today.  The problem with that teaching is….well…it’s…how do I say…WRONG!  Take a good look at your Bible and stop reading someone else’s opinion.  Stop drawing conclusions from your experience.  What does the Holy Spirit tell you?  He is ALIVE.  He is HERE.  He is in YOU.  Come on.  Powerless Christianity is nothing more than religion.  It is a good idea, good morality, good intentioned, wholly inadequate…Jesus club.  God never intended for us to be without His power, His dunamis, His dyno-MITE!  It isn’t my fault.  I didn’t say it, He did.  So what happened?  We stopped believing.  We stopped teaching a pure Gospel.  We stopped believing in Grace.  We polluted and diluted the power of His Grace into just a pill to take when we are sick.  We have just enough belief in the power of the Holy Spirit to get by.  I say there is way more!  There is nitroglycerine!!!!

Nitro was this compound that an Italian named Ascanio Sobrero discovered.  It was very volatile and highly explosive.  It had to be handled very carefully.  They tried to dilute the stuff to make it safer to transport but this is what they found:

“Desensitization requires extra effort to reconstitute the “pure” product. Failing this, it must be assumed that desensitized nitroglycerin is substantially more difficult to detonate, possibly rendering it useless as an explosive for practical application.”

So this guy named Nobel (you maybe heard of him) came up with a way to mix nitroglycerine with diatomaceous earth to make dynamite.  It is stable and powerful.  It is how the Pacific Railroad cut a path through the granite rich Sierra Nevada mountains.  It made the impossible possible.  Note that diatomaceous earth is also used as a filtration (gets rid of lies), abrasive (cleans off the grime), pest control (gets rid of the enemy), absorbent (learns from the Holy Spirit) and thermal (keeps the fire hot).  OK, maybe I am stretching it a bit but Holy Spirit in you, in His temple, one with your spirit is Dyno-MITE!  God breathed into you (dirt man) His Spirit (uber-nitro) and Boom!  Can’t you see it?  How awesome is that?

Somewhere along the way we stopped believing in Him, in His finished work, in His provision, in His Grace, in “Jesus is King” and substituted in additions to what He already finished.  We stopped preaching a pure Gospel and started adding stuff like law to the mix.  We watered down the power of God to change, heal, deliver, make new, teach, speak, guide, love, refine, make pure and well…just blow stuff up.  We took the creator and put Him in a box.  We decided that our experience, our observations were truth instead of what He said.  How insulting to my Jesus.

You know that nitroglycerin is used as a medication when it is diluted to fractions of its strength?  It expands veins and lowers blood pressure to get more oxygen to the heart and reduce the stress on the pump.  Well there is much better medical explanation but the point is the awesome power of the Holy Spirit when reduced by our unbelief still brings comfort.  Wonder what He could do at full strength?  Sound pretty ridiculous when you say it that way.

Let’s get back to a pure, concentrated, non-diluted, non-polluted Gospel of Grace.  It is all about Him.  When we get that guess what happens?  We get out-of-the-way.  We stop limiting Him.  We let Him do what He intended to do from the very beginning…Make some Dyno-MITE!

Yay God!  I love Him so much…

Lance