Experiencing The Power Of The Ascended Jesus

But according to Jesus, the power of His Spirit is given for another reason as well, to help us continue the work which he began here on earth. The Spirit equips us with power to do His work. To share the Good News about Jesus, that through him we find peace with God. After telling his disciples they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them his next words were to be his witnesses. The Bible says that since Jesus is in heaven, we, the church, are his body. We are the hands and feet of Jesus. He fills us with his Spirit because he has work for us to do here on earth. The work of sharing him with others, and of building his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. He chooses to work through us by the power of his Spirit.

I was recently asked a very good penetrating question. Why don’t we see the power of the Holy Spirit more often today? Why don’t we see miraculous healings? Why don’t we see more changed lives and people coming to know Jesus? Why don’t we see more signs and wonders? I know some Christians might say, it is because the age for wondrous signs of the Holy Spirit are over. But I disagree. The Holy Spirit who filled believers on Pentecost Sunday 2000 years ago is the same Holy Spirit who fills us today. The same promise Jesus gave to his disciples, is for us today, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.”

But what was the purpose of receiving the power? The reason for the power was not to be wowed by God, but to be a witness for Jesus, and to help usher in God’s kingdom. They received the power in order that they might share Jesus with others. We have been going through the book of Acts in our Bible study and it’s very interesting to discover the almost every time the power of the Holy Spirit is manifested it is followed by people coming to faith in Christ. Is it possible that the reason we don’t see the power of the Spirit is because we have largely ignored the Great Commission of making disciples of Jesus?

According to these passage I believer there is another reason we fail to experience the power and presence of God is because of the lack of unity and love shared by the church.

NLT Ephesians 1:23 And the church is his body; it is filled by Christ, who fills everything everywhere with his presence.

What does Christ fill? The church because it is his body, it is an extension of himself and he is the head. While the Holy Spirit is given to each individual believer, the full power of Christ’s presence, or the Spirit’s presence, is only experienced in the church, or in the community of believers. In other words the power of Christ’s presence is not experienced by lone ranger Christians or lone ranger churches.

In v. 19 Paul tells us he wants us to know God’s incomparably great power.

Why don’t we experience more of God’s power? Because believers try to do everything on their own rather than in Christian community, or worse yet they live in conflict with other believers. This is true with individual believers who feel they don’t need the church, or churches who feel they don’t need other churches. Whether it is because of theological differences or a proud sense of individualism, or the desire to build our church to make our church bigger, the divisions among the churches only serve to minimize the power of God’s Spirit.