“And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven” (Luke 24:49 NLT).
Our Lord did not envisage that anybody will serve God in any way without the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, notwithstanding that He personally taught the apostles for a period of about three and half years, His parting order to them was to wait for the promise of the Father, which is the enduement of supernatural power, before they could do what He had trained them to do. By this, our Lord underscored the point that while training is necessary for service in God’s kingdom, it is not enough without the power of God. This supernatural power is the energy of the Holy Spirit, which will be imparted to them to enable them represent and re-present Christ effectively in and to the world. Human energy is grossly inadequate for effective service in the kingdom of God. The work of God must be done not by human might or power, but by the Holy Spirit (Zachariah 4:6). This explains why God is committed to empowering believers so we can effectively do the work He has called each of us to do.
The work of God must be done not by human might or power, but by the Holy Spirit.
The empowerment of the Holy Spirit is a form of certification that authorizes a born again believer to operate in the realm of the supernatural. A simple analogy would be someone who studied and earned a university degree in law could not practice law until the person is “called to the bar.” This would require a certification from the Nigerian Law School. It is this certification from the Law School that empowers a law graduate to function as a lawyer. Other professional groups such as engineers, medical doctors, require this post-training certification before one is accepted into the profession and recognized as a practitioner. Enduement of power from on high is the post-training certification Jesus requires of His disciples for service in His Kingdom. Seminary training alone is not enough to make one a minister of the gospel. Such trainings must be backed up with the enduement of power which comes directly from the Holy Spirit. Education plus anointing qualifies us for divine service. Our Lord invites all believers to this infilling with the supernatural power of God, without which none is fit to be enlisted in the service of the kingdom.
Of all the people that received the original invitation from our Lord on the Ascension Day, only 120 of them took Him serious and waited patiently in prayer for the promise of the Father. “They were at the Mount of Olives when this happened, so now they walked the half mile back to Jerusalem and held a prayer meeting in an upstairs room of the house where they were staying… This prayer meeting went on for several days…” (Acts 1:12-15 LB). To those disciples, the invitation from Christ to wait for the power of God was a call to fervent and expectant prayer. They went straight from Mount of Olives to the Upper Room and began a prayer meeting that was to last until the power comes. Over the years, the church has not found another way to actualize the promise of the Father than to wait in fervent prayers for it. Prayer begets power! Hence, God’s invitation to power is an invitation to determined prayer.
Michael Molinos, Spanish martyr and mystic, defined the kind of prayer that can bring down the power of God on us today saying, “Prayer is an ascent or elevation of the mind to God. And God is above all creatures. Therefore the soul cannot see Him or converse with Him unless she rises herself above all creatures.” But this is where the problem lies, our inability to raise our minds above all creatures so we can converse with God. Our minds are so often cluttered with needs and desires that do not dispose us to seek first the kingdom of God. To pray for the enduement of power, we must set our minds on things above and not on things below. The goal of such prayer must be the glory of God even if that would mean robbing us of our cherished wishes and desires. The prayer that brings down the power of God must be in harmony with the will of God and in harmony with the work He has called us to do. To pray effectively for the power from on high, we must jettison the prevailing notion of prayer as lobbying, whereby we try to pull God to our side. Instead, prayer must mean getting on the side of God and letting His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The power from heaven is to do heaven’s biddings on earth.
This season of the feast of the Pentecost affords us a marvelous opportunity to seek for the enduement of the power of God so we can do the work He has called us to do with the energy of His Spirit in Jesus name.
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