Receive Power

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” (Acts 1:8)

Before this moment, had the disciples ever been described as power-full? We get a brief idea of at least the possibility of this power when we recall that they had participated in the casting out of demons. But was this label ever used of them? Jesus had told them that they would do “greater works than he did” because He was going to the Father, but as I read it, that was going to be after their time together as teacher and disciples, not before. Was this the time that he was referring to?

It’s easy to think of the disciples as a bit of a bumbling mess: ready to call down fire on those who didn’t believe correctly or follow appropriately; arguing for the place of honor next to the Master; denying Him in Gethsemane and running away, or else stealing from the treasury. In a simple reading of the Gospels, they don’t come across as men who are primed for “full-of-power ministry”.

But that’s going to change with the coming upon them of God the Holy Spirit. The presence of God upon them would put them into a new category of description: men who powerfully represented the Triune God. As the book of Acts unfolds, we see that power demonstrated on page after page in preaching, healing, demon-deliverance, escape and protection. What a contrast from what we read in the Gospel pages! There, they seem to be trying to figure what Jesus is all about and how to take next steps. They often stumble over their own feet in the process, sort of like an awkward 8^th grade boy at his first school dance; he feels like he’s supposed to know what to do, but can’t deliver. Why do all the girls seem to know how to do this? The boy knows nothing and has a hard time faking it!

In the Holy Spirit stories of Acts, we realize that these disciples have been thoroughly changed. This was commented on in Acts 4:13, that observers marveled that these ordinary men, with no special training, had been with Jesus and they were boldly about sharing their faith in him. That change has not come through advancing maturity, or getting older and wiser, or having figured out “how to do ministry”. I have a hard time reaching any conclusion other than it has come from the presence and power given to them by God the Holy Spirit. Instead of them being pictured any longer as an awkward and unsure 8^th grader at the school dance, think, masterful ballet performer before a sold-out opera house. Suddenly, the unfolding of this narrative of Jesus-followers is a masterpiece. Holy Spirit power is the reason.

And it’s not an overstatement to note that the world has never been the same since.

“Father, just as the disciples received power for ministry, prepare us for the same!”