“There is power in the name of Jesus…”
Especially if you were raised in church like I was, you’ve probably sung that song hundreds of times. But after surrendering my life to Jesus and signing up for my first mission trip, where I knew I’d have to rely on the power of Holy Spirit like never before, I began to wonder if we, as the American/Western Church, truly understand what we’re singing. AW Tozer (one of my FAVORITE theologians/authors/preachers of the past) gave the hard truth of this scenario: “Christians don’t tell lies; they go to church and sing them instead.”
Many Christians, whether we admit it or not, tend to doubt how powerful God truly is, and even those who insist otherwise act contrarily. But at the very least, we tend to think that the power isn’t available to us or is only limited to certain “master Christians,” like pastors and missionaries.
But man, oh, man, if we could just grab ahold of power available to us, the entire world around us would change in a moment. Making us believe that we’re weak and powerless is one of Satan’s greatest tools.
But you shall receive power (ability, efficiency, and might) when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends (the very bounds) of the earth. [Acts 1:8 AMP]
Although the resurrected Jesus spoke this directly, in that moment, to the eleven remaining disciples, that does NOT mean that it was limited only to them. The three “you”s in this verse don’t include any qualifiers or exceptions, and thus, the “you” means YOU. It means all of us.
YOU ARE MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU KNOW. YOU are more powerful probably than you could ever dream. Please get that.
It’s also noteworthy that when it says “receive,” it’s not talking about like how you receive a gift. A gift is something given to you externally, and this power is not external. It’s not like God has given us super-powered rings like in the Captain Planet cartoon which give us power when we put them on. No, this power is something that resides inside of us. The Greek word for receive, λαμβάνω (lambanō), means to take something upon yourself and make it your own. Thus, the power has become ours; it has become a part of us.
Thayer’s Greek Lexicon defines the Greek word for “power” as: “inherent power, power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature.” Thus, the power of the Holy Spirit resides in us by virtue of our nature; our new nature, the one that became ours when we became a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), the Divine Nature. So the power of the Holy Spirit is built-in; it’s a part of your nature.
That’s powerful. (No pun intended). And it gets even better still.
When I hear the word ‘power’, my mind typically goes to electricity. After all, when a storm hits and causes us to lose electricity, we say, “the power is out.” But the thing about electric power is that it can be controlled, contained. As I’m writing this, there is electricity that is running from an outlet in the wall four feet away to my computer. But that electric power is controlled and confined to a small rubber cord, which is why although the electricity is traveling multiple feet across flammable carpeting, bedding, and my lap, it is not affecting any of those things. It’s contained. It’s controlled. It is only going where it is allowed to go. I can’t feel the power going across my legs. It is only touching and affecting what it’s allowed to touch and affect.
But the Biblical definition of power is so much greater than that. The Greek word for ‘power,’ like used in Acts 1:8, among many others, is δύναμις (dynamis).
First and foremost, dynamis is also translated as “mighty work” or “miracle” because it’s not just power, it’s power in action. After all, is power really power if it’s not being used? If my computer is plugged in but is turned off, then there’s no power moving through the cord. But the moment my computer needs the power, the moment I turn it on, the power flows. So we can deduce then that power only shows up when and where it’s needed. I could go off on a huge rabbit trail here, but I’ll just say this: are you taking steps of faith and putting yourself in situations where you need the power that’s in you? Are you actually using the power of the Holy Spirit, or are you just putting it in a corner? And yes, that means YOU, yes, YOU can perform mighty works and miracles through the power within you. “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” (John 14:12)
Here’s my favorite part though: dynamis, pronounced doo-namis, is where we get our English word ‘dynamite.’ That’s right; that’s the kind of power we’re talking here. Whereas electricity can be confined and controlled so that it can run across my carpet and bed and lap without affecting anything except giving my laptop the power it needs, if I lit a stick of dynamite in my room, EVERYTHING would be affected, including me if I didn’t get out of there fast enough. Everything would be changed, everything would look different; in essence, the atmosphere would completely change. THAT’S the kind of power we have inside of us…power that cannot be controlled or confined, power that changes everything, power that changes the atmosphere.
On our staff retreat this year, some of my co-workers got to talking with one of the workers of the cruiseline. It was hard for them not to notice this polite, well-behaved, 100-person group that was having a great time together, all the while consuming not even a drop of alcohol, unlike every other person on the ship, so she asked who we were. When they told her we were missionaries having our staff retreat, she remarked, “That explains why the atmosphere of this cruise has been completely different.” BOOM. Dynamite. Power that changes the atmosphere.
YOU have that power, too.
If you look up the word ‘dynamite’ in the dictionary, one of the definitions is this: “a person having a spectacular effect.” That’s you. You, my friend, are dynamite.
The Living One Blog 