“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?” (Acts 1:11) Here is a question that provokes a deeper question in me:

Do I functionally live as if Jesus is away from me?

Am I an “unbelieving believer”? Do I have a belief in Jesus, yet live my daily life unaware of His presence and unfamiliar with His power? Am I self-reliant or Spirit-reliant?

Dear Elim Grace, since we are growing not a big church but a big people, do we expect things to be different in and for our lives? Or is being a Christian only a matter of going to heaven and of Jesus coming back “soon”?

Have you ever asked yourself the question, “Why is there so little power in my life?”

Of course Jesus will come again at the end of time and with Him bring a new heaven and earth. But did He not come “again” from heaven in and by the Spirit in Acts 2? Did He not come “again” when, having received the Holy Spirit from the Father’s hand, He poured Him out on us in full and free? “But you will receive POWER when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (1:11).

The Spirit has come! And is now abiding and flowing as “rivers of living water”! “Be filled (continually),” says Paul, “with the Spirit.” The reality of the kingdom of God and our new life in Christ is this. There is no power apart from the person and presence of the Holy Spirit. He IS the power of God. He is the PERSON of power. He is the PRESENCE of Christ’s power in our lives and for our lives today.

When an important figure walks into a room, the room shifts. The people’s attention shifts. Their confidence shifts. How much more so when the Spirit enters a room! The room shifts. When the Spirit enters a heart, the heart shifts. When the Spirit enters a life, the life of a person shifts. When the Spirit enters a church, the people shift. Old things pass away and new things come.

Let us live, Elim Grace, as a people big in the present, not distant, power and life of the Holy Spirit.