POWER FOR LIVING

Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be My witnesses, telling people about Me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

As St. Paul writes in his letter to the church in Philippi, (Philippians 2:6-8) that God, the Eternal Son, emptied Himself of His divine prerogatives and became a human being. Being fully God and fully man, Jesus Christ lived His Life as a human being in perfect union and fellowship with God the Father, sinless and perfect. He lived out His mission and executed His ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit. He lived Life in the same power He would give to His followers, His church, so they would be able to live the New Life they were to receive after His Resurrection.

Jesus became the Messiah at the Jordan River when, after He identified with our desperate need for His salvation through baptism, the Holy Spirit came upon Him in power, utterly filling Him without measure. Messiah means anointed One. Jesus, conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary was empowered at the Jordan to carry out the ministry and mission that was uniquely His and His alone. Jesus stated, “As the Father has sent me, in the same way, I am sending you.” John 20:21-22 Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Those in that room were, at that very moment, regenerated by the Holy Spirit and became new creations in Christ Jesus. They were going to be empowered to live that Life on the Day of Pentecost. Acts 1:8

The Christian life is not lived by intellectual assent to a body of doctrine. The truth of the Gospel cannot be lived into by human initiative or extreme effort. It cannot be lived out by any ability innate in any human being. The will of God is either lived out by the Power of God or it is not lived out at all. The Truth of the Gospel, Holy Doctrine, biblical knowledge, adherence to Scripture in daily living are things that the Holy Spirit, living the Life of Jesus Christ in the believer, make real, lifegiving, encouraging, correcting and transformative.

We do not change our own lives. We are given a brand-new, radically different Life than the one we had lived before being given God’s gifts of repentance and faith, The regenerative power of the Holy Spirit was and is ever the action of God; not by human will but by the power of God we are born again. This Christian Life is lived in the same Power that Jesus Christ lived out His Incarnational Life and ministry. Followers of Jesus Christ are called the Body of Christ, the ongoing, physical manifestation of His Life on the earth commissioned to carry on His ministry to the ends of the earth. We are meant to look like Him.

In Luke 24:44-49 you can read that the Risen Lord Jesus opened the minds of His followers on the evening of Easter, to understand everything written about Him in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms. He caused them to understand the full revelation of the Scriptures about who He is and what He had done. They could have stood in the town square and clearly proved from Scripture that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the Messiah, the Eternal Son of God. But Jesus told them to WAIT in Jerusalem until they were clothed with Power from on High.

The disciples could only be witnesses to His Life, Death and Resurrection after they were empowered for that ministry, even as Jesus had been anointed for His earthly ministry. The authority given to His church to preach the Kingdom of God was going to confirmed as it was through Jesus Christ in signs and wonders, miracles, and healing. St. Paul makes the statement in his first letter to the church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 2:1-5) “When I first came to you, dear brothers and sisters, I didn’t use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God’s secret plan. For I decided that while I was with you, I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified. I came to you in weakness—timid and trembling.  And my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit. I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God.”

Again in 1 Thessalonians 1:5 “ For, when we brought you the Good News, it was not only with words but also with power, for the Holy Spirit gave you full assurance that what we said was true. And you know of our concern for you from the way we lived when we were with you.”

You can read in the New Testament Book of Acts and see that the ministry of the church (not just the early church) was ministry that sounded like and looked like the ministry and Life of the Risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The work and ministry of the Body of Christ is meant to look like Jesus in every way. God’s glory manifest in power is never meant to point to any human individual or group through whom the Lord is actively working, but to Jesus Christ alone. That itself will show you the authenticity of Kingdom works and signs. They point to Jesus Christ, and Him alone!

The church today in many places is very doctrinally sound except in the case where it will not believe that the Holy Spirit intends to continue the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ through His people in the same Power of the Holy Spirit, we see manifest in the New Testament. The Word of God declared through the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, was shown to have the authority of Heaven itself as the Power of God followed the peaching and teaching of the Kingdom of God through the Lord Jesus in signs, healings and miracles that showed God’s Kingdom was undoing the kingdom of darkness and destroying the works of the devil.

The first century was filled with a plethora of philosophical propositions, cultural ennui, and rampant debauchery as is our own time. It’s time again for the world to say, “This is a new teaching with authority! Demons are driven out by His Name, the blind see, the lame walk the deaf hear and the dead are raised to life!” Listen, apart from a living, united relationship with Jesus Christ, a person is dead, spiritually and, thus, essentially dead, sub-human. Believe me, Jesus Christ still wants to raise the dead through His church.

Christian, you are meant to live life in utter humility, empowered by the Holy Spirit, declaring His Word and carrying on the work and ministry of Jesus Christ. That is what being a witness to His resurrection is all about.