Article - Power from On High

Power from On High

Enough energy to power the city of New York for an hour, and it strikes the earth about 100 times each second. As I watched the “60 Minutes” report on lightning this week I couldn’t help but think “Wouldn’t it be great to be able to somehow harness that power?”

However as Liam Bartlett observed, lightning is “one of nature's most well-observed events, but also one of the most mysterious.” We don’t have the ability to predict it, let alone control it.

As the report re-told the story of Justin Bale and others who have been struck by lightning, I thought back to another story of power descending upon people from on high. Recently I was reading the story of Pentecost Sunday to my son Tim, and we were imagining together what it might have been like to suddenly hear a noise like the blowing of a violent wind, and what looked like tongues of fire coming to rest on those present. Suddenly they began speaking in languages that they previously did not know. These things were signs that something even more amazing had just happened – the God who created the Universe had just come to live inside them. But what is this all about and how does it happen?

Created for Connection

The Bible describes that humanity was created for relationship with God. This relationship is freely available to everyone through faith in Jesus. Having faith in Jesus means coming to the point of genuinely believing that Jesus is God’s Son; His death paid the penalty for everything we have done against God and that His resurrection demonstrated God’s power to give us new life which will never end. Jesus becomes your Saviour (the one who has saved you from sin and death and judgement) and Lord (the one who is rightfully in charge of your life). Having Jesus Christ as your Saviour and Lord means that you are a part of God’s family. Still, we haven’t yet discovered how God comes to live inside you.

Plugging In

Before Jesus went back to Heaven, He promised His followers that God the Father would send the Holy Spirit. The story of Pentecost Sunday that I mentioned earlier tells how that happened for the first time. Ever since that time, when people have become part of God’s family they have received God’s Holy Spirit to live inside them. This is how the Apostle Paul explained it to some Christians living in the city of Ephesus: “And now you also have heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us everything he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people.” (Ephesians 1:13-14a, emphasis mine)

So, believing in Jesus (the full truth about Jesus, not just some bits!) is how we plug in to a personal connection with God where God actually comes and lives inside us through the Holy Spirit. But what difference does it make to be connected to God? How can you tell if a person has really got this power within?

Signs of Life

You might look for some of the amazing signs that happened at Pentecost Sunday. On that day, it was very obvious that something special had happened and many thousands of people in Jerusalem noticed. Some people were convinced that they were witnessing a “God thing”, but many people suspected there was something else going on. Throughout history there have been many other times where God has shown pretty amazing signs that He was at work in and through His people. There have been healings and prophecies and people raised from the dead and all sorts of other demonstrations of power. There have also been plenty of hoaxes, such as one in Uganda recently where a preacher is accused of using a device bought from a magic store to con people into thinking that he has God’s power running through him. A lot of people wish for spectacular signs - and they do have a purpose - but they are not always the best way to tell if someone has a genuine connection with God. Next week we’ll look at what the Bible says about the signs of life that come with a genuine relationship with God.

Mike Birch.