You never know how much you depend on something until it’s gone. Take power, for example. Without power, not only are we without light and heat, but we can’t charge our cellphones. Sure, light and heat are essential, but we can burn something and stay warm, right? But without cellphones – what do we do?

I mean, my life is on this cellphone – my address book, my bank account, my calendar, my wallet, my Bible, my maps. I literally am lost without my cellphone. A dead cellphone does me no good. For it to work, I need power.

The same can be said of our spiritual lives. Without spiritual power, we are dead; the church is dead. A dead church doesn’t do much good. We can go about our lives looking all religious on the outside, praying, raising our hands during worship, quoting Bible verses left and right but without the power of the Holy Spirit, it means nothing; it is just religion.

The Apostle Paul warned about people who would act religious but reject the power that could make them godly. He said to “stay away from people like that.” But he wasn’t alone in his warning: Jesus also warned about being spiritually dead when He said this to the church of Sardis, in Revelation 3:1a-3. He said:

 I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. ² Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. ³ Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. (Revelation 3:1-3)

Dead spiritual lives don’t accomplish much. For them to work, we need power. Not just any kind of power, but spiritual power. This spiritual power comes from the Holy Spirit. To understand this power better, let’s start with Jesus. He is always a good place to start, isn’t He?

Jesus Powered Up With the Holy Spirit

When Jesus walked the earth, he modeled and demonstrated the will of God in all He said and did. Jesus was fully God and fully man. But He didn’t do what He did as God but as man in right relationship with God, walking in the POWER of the Holy Spirit. Jesus chose to let the Spirit lead Him.

Let’s look at how important the Holy Spirit was in Jesus’ life:

From Scripture, we know that:

• Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary, a virgin, became pregnant with Jesus (Matthew 1:18). So, without the Holy Spirit, Jesus wouldn’t have been born.
• When John was baptizing Jesus, the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove. Jesus was baptized in the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:16). Jesus even talked about how the Spirit of the Lord was on Him in Luke 4:16 -21. When Jesus was asked to read in the Temple, He read the following from the scroll of Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

After reading, he rolled up the scroll and said the Scripture had been fulfilled. Jesus was the fulfillment! The Spirit of the Lord was on Him.

• After Jesus was baptized in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit led Him to the desert to be tempted by Satan. Jesus overcame the temptation and returned to Galilee filled with the Holy Spirit’s power, ready to destroy the works of Satan. (Luke 4:14) And He did.

• Jesus cast out demons and performed many other miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:28)

• The Holy Spirit emboldened Jesus and sustained Him during His sacrifice on the cross.  How else could Jesus have willingly offered himself as a perfect sacrifice for our sins other than through the power of the Holy Spirit? Hebrews 9:14

• And finally, the power of the Holy Spirit resurrected Jesus (Romans 8:11). Jesus must have trusted the Holy Spirit 100 percent. Jesus basically did a trust fall into the grave, the pit of Hell, believing that the Holy Spirit would CATCH HIM and bring Him back. And we know that He did.

From all of this, we see that Jesus entirely relied on the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish the purpose for which He was sent.

If Jesus needed the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish the will of His Father, how much more do we need that same power to accomplish God’s call on our lives?

It’s a good thing we have a good Father who knows exactly what we need and does not withhold any good gift, including the gift of the Holy Spirit.

We Can Power Up With the Holy Spirit

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, and right before He went back up to Heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, Jesus gave the disciples some final instructions.

He told them to stay in Jerusalem and wait on the promise from the Father – the Holy Spirit who would come and fill them with power from Heaven. Another translation says He told them to wait to be clothed with power from on high. Luke 24:49  

Ten days later, on the day of Pentecost, just as He promised, the power of God filled the upper room where the disciples were sitting. A piece of Heaven came down to earth that day.

Luke describes what happened in Acts 2:1-4:

“When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from Heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

YOU ALL! The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead now filled the 120!

Peter, the same Peter, who in fear had earlier denied Jesus not once, not twice, but three times, began to unashamedly preach Jesus to the crowds. He was bold and brave for Jesus. I WANT TO BE BOLD AND BRAVE FOR JESUS, TOO, DON’T YOU?

The Holy Spirit had given Peter and the other disciples power from Heaven, and 3,000 people were saved that day.

But that power wasn’t just for the 120 in that upper room. No. If you keep reading the book of Acts, you will see that this power was available to all those who believed in Jesus as their Savior. The believers didn’t have to reach a certain spiritual milestone or be a follower for this many days, months, or years to receive this power.

They simply believed and received. Believed and received. Believed and received.

Jesus knew that His followers, that we, would need the power to walk out our lives fully surrendered to Him.  That is why He sent to us as a gift from God the Holy Spirit our Comforter, our Counselor, our Helper, our Intercessor, our Advocate, our POWER FROM HEAVEN.

Next time, we will talk about how the Holy Spirit equips us to accomplish God’s plans and purposes for our lives.