“And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
Luke 24:49
For forty days, The Risen Christ gathered His disciples, and taught them about the Kingdom of God. Luke provides an account of The Savior’s evening message to His disciples. On His Resurrection Day, stepping into The Upper Room, Jesus outlined the underlying theme of His teaching.
“I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you.”
The Risen Christ prepared His disciples to receive the promise of His Father, prior to carrying out His mission. The promise is nothing less than the Person and the power of the Holy Spirit. He warned them. No promise, No power.
“But you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
The great danger of the contemporary church is their relentless zeal to engage a temporary culture without being clothed with eternal power. Like an ornamental fruit tree, too many churches produce abundant foliage without bearing real fruit.
The promise of power is not offered for the church to provide shade without substance. People living in darkness, do not need more shade.They need light.
Vacation Bible School children were taught to sing with child-like innocence and complete confidence.
“This little light of mine. I’m going to let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel? NO! I’m going to let it shine.
LET IT SHINE. LET IT SHINE. LET IT SHINE.”
Candles gleaming in the night have been replaced with eye-popping websites, clever branding, slick promotional campaigns, and well-orchestrated and scripted stage shows. They have proven to be a poor substitute for child-like faith, filled with the promise of supernatural power.
For 2,000 years the church has flirted with offering people what they want, by providing them with what little they have, while giving God the glory for it. Promising more than they can deliver, prayerless churches have offered hopeless people high hopes without delivering “power from on high.”
Samuel Chadwick, English Methodist Evangelist, was called “The John Wesley of the 20th Century.” His ministry was marked by the complete transformation of lives in some of the toughest mill towns in Great Britain. In his latter years, he was a professor and mentor to Leonard Ravenhill. Chadwick described seeing the power of the resurrection released upon the churches of his nation.
“Nothing would turn the nation back to God so surely and so quickly as a Church that prayed and prevailed. The world will never believe in a religion in which there is no supernatural power. A rationalized faith, a socialized Church, and a moralized gospel may gain applause, but they awaken no conviction and win no converts.” Samuel Chadwick
The Risen Christ warned His disciples of the danger of carrying out His mission without being clothed with His power. The Spirit of The Living Christ never promises more than His Father can deliver. Full of themselves, and not the Spirit, prayerless and powerless people always will.
NOTE TO SELF: Stop wrapping yourself and Christ’s church in the fake fig leaves of your personal power. Don’t be in such a hurry to tell more than you know, and to share more than you have. Be clothed with power from on high. Never confuse your phony foliage with The Fruit of The Spirit. Jesus said, “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” He was talking to you. You will find the substance of His power by praying in His Presence.
TALK LESS! PRAY MORE!