Without Power

I love to look at the buildings of Manhattan, especially at night when the lights are all on. It is an amazing sight to see all of those buildings filled with people, activities, and ideas at work, and to know that what is hatched there will not only affect New York City but the entire world. However, regardless of how influential New York City and its people can be, if you take away the electrical power—which happens occasionally during a blackout—the whole thing shuts down. The office buildings become useless, the activity ceases, and the ideas die in the darkness. Without power, all that potential is wasted.

The same is true for us believers. If we don’t have access to spiritual power, how can we accomplish what needs to be done? Power to overcome sin. Power to overcome spiritual enemies that attack us. Power to endure hardship and affliction. Power to speak. Power to pray. Power to witness. Isn’t more spiritual power probably the greatest need we have today?

It’s interesting that the risen Christ’s final words before his ascension concerned spiritual power. “I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). It was as if Jesus looked down the corridors of time and knew that even having the right gospel message would not be enough. We would face so many such obstacles from satanic strongholds that we would never evangelize the world effectively without the power that only the Spirit can impart. 

Jim Cymbala began the Brooklyn Tabernacle with less than twenty members in a small, rundown building in a difficult part of the city. A native of Brooklyn, he is a longtime friend of both David and Gary Wilkerson.