Redefining Power

Those two sentences, spoken by my team leader in feedback last night, basically sum up what God has been teaching me these last two weeks. Not very profound you might say. Sure, I’ll give you that.  But the concept is completely life changing. Ministry isn’t meant to only be done during “set times” or at “set places”. Our entire life, every moment of every day, is meant to be an offering to God. Worship is so much more than songs we sing during church or even in our car while we’re driving to work. Worship is the posture of our heart, the way we seek to bring God the glory and praise he deserves.

I have been reading through Acts the past couple of days, and God has really opened my eyes up to the power with which the early church lived by. Everyone from the leaders like Paul and Peter, to the average Joe and Jill living in Antioch, was filled with the Holy Spirit in a TANGIBLE and VISIBLE way. And guess what? That same power is what fills us! Just as God does not change, the Holy Spirit has not, and will never, change. He isn’t any less powerful or miraculous or visible now than he was on the day of Pentecost. If we say that God is truth, and that everything he speaks is truth, why don’t we believe this? Why don’t we live our lives in that faith, stepping out to do crazy things because we know the Spirit will move?

In my life, I know it’s because my own heart doesn’t really believe this. The early churches’ actions and faith showed the interior condition of their hearts, hearts that were filled completely with God’s presence through the Holy Spirit. God tripped me up with this truth yesterday as I read:

I had to ask myself, what is my instinctive response in any situation? For example, Saturday our team was supposed to go to Livingston to hang out at the beach with one of Karina (my team leader’s) friends from her World Race Trip. Well, the team went, but I didn’t. I woke up Saturday morning feeling AWFUL and in stomach pain. Needless to say, I stayed home. When I finally woke up at 1:30, I really got hit with sadness, loneliness, and just completely missing my team and feeling down. I got in the word, but even after that I was homesick. God had to pull me aside and make me ask myself, “What was my instinctive response today?” Without going into to much detail, I will let you know that my response showed the condition of my heart: I was NOT dependent on or walking with God. In focusing on myself, I was miserable and missing God’s potential for the day, even though I was stuck at home. This trip isn’t about me, it’s about God and how he moves. As one of my teammates Belle said, “It is a BLESSING and a PRIVELEGE to be here.”

Yet what I am talking about here goes way beyond how I feel on a particular day. If I am walking by the Holy Spirit, not only will it change how I view my own circumstances, it will change the entire way I view my purpose. Each moment is another opportunity for ministry. Whether that means walking up to a complete stranger in the Pradera and asking if we can pray for them and then inviting them to church, or the team being led to pray for a Voodoo temple on an unexpected “culture trip”, God is constantly moving in ways we can’t even begin to fathom. Isn’t it about time we step out in faith and let ourselves be led by the Holy Spirit? I don’t know about you, but I want to see that Acts 2 community manifesting itself in our body of believers, and I want to see that kind of revival and society-shaking change come in our own communities and around the world. It’s not going to happen by good intentions or even good works. The kind of power we needs comes from one source alone: the Holy Spirit.

If you’re a believer, you’ve already been given the Holy Spirit. Start walking with him! Step out in faith! Let him do crazy things in you! If you think all of this is crazy voodoo witchcraft, or just to “weird” for you, I invite you to ask me about it! Or better yet, seek God yourself and what he has to say! Don’t just go off what you have seen in others, because humans are imperfect and are in no way an adequate representation of the greatness of God. We strive to be, but will never do him justice. Seek out what he says in his love letters to us, talk to him in the faith that he will respond. He is amazing and he will rock your world, but you have to go with an open mind and with the faith that he will move. Don’t think you need him? Then what do you have to lose? Seek him out anyway. Seek for yourself what He is really saying, how he is pursuing you, and how he desires the deepest, most intimate relationship you could never imagine all with you!

Praying life change for you guys!