The Purpose of Power
Movement Live Notes
We hear a lot about power in our world. And we hear a lot about the trapping of power which often includes fame and control over others. People in many walks of life, i.e., family or friends, want power. Men and women are building and have built empires of kingdoms that were controlled and manipulated by power.
Millions of people experienced a loss of power during the record-breaking winter storm. This loss of material power caused many of them to feel as though they were power-less. Well, Christians and followers of Christ, we can have power. But it is a power of a different kind. It is not worldly power. It is not electrical power. It is not material power, or fame, or control over others. Jesus taught his disciples about the kingdom of God, a present spiritual reality that will ultimately be fulfilled in a future physical form. He taught his disciples about the kingdom of God through his earthly ministry in Luke chapter four. We see that the kingdom of God has been and will forever be a major focus. And it needs to be a major focus. The kingdom equals God's people in God's place under God's rule. Jesus taught them that they would be empowered members of God's own kingdom. They would be empowered. And once they were empowered, they couldn't lose their power.
The body of Christ is people that have been drawn together by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. The spirit of God would clothe the disciples. It would clothe them, but not just clothe them with haberdasheries, but it would clothe them power from on high, and my brothers and sisters, we need power.
Some of you may have needed some electrical power this week, but more essential than that, we all need the power of the Holy Spirit. My brothers and sisters are experiencing a lack of power? We fall into this because so many of us in the body of Christ don't understand the kingdom plan. And we don't understand the kingdom's purpose. We believe that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love God and are called into His purpose, but we don't understand the kingdom plan and the kingdom's purpose. This shows how God's people, much like modern culture, have a disconnect.
There was a disconnect between what God had done and what we perceive God should do. Acts 1:6 says, "So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” For us, it has been, "Lord is it at this time you're going to restore my power? Lord, is it at this time you're going to restore my water? In the text, they were still thinking politically. They were thinking about their culture. They were thinking about their own political problems. They were looking to be restored. “Lord, is it at this time that you are going to restore the kingdom of Israel?” And he said to them in verse number seven, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
Christ has commissioned us to move the gospel forward. Let us not continue moving while being disconnected. Let us begin walking in the power of the Holy Spirit.
