It is sometimes hard to look at the book of Acts. You go through the only divinely inspired church history ever recorded and you cannot help but come to a crisis of belief. As you read you see how God worked in power. They went from 11 scared and confused disciples to 120 to the day of Pentecost where the church went from 120 to over 3000! You see God work in power in the lives of people like Peter, Paul, Stephen, Phillip. You see the church begin its quest to do what Jesus told them to do, to go from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, to the ends of the earth. How did they do it? They had power!
Jesus told them that they “will receive power” and on that day when the power came their world and our world changed forever. Now we know looking back that the “power” was the Holy Spirit. We read and believe that the Holy Spirit is working today in us and through us. Yet how come we don’t see the similar results? We can come up with our own answers to that question and quietly frankly as I tried to come up with some myself, they excuses just fell short. What the early church faced is not really all that much different than the world we live in now. So why are we powerless, or are we?
The answer to the difference between then and now is prayer. The early church was a praying church. When they got together in prayer times the power of God moved in their lives. When they prayed it was together, it was continuous, it was for communion with God and each other. It was prayer for God to work in their lives, it was for boldness to do what Jesus told them to do and they believed He could do it!
Let’s be honest, most people don’t pray that way. For a lot of people prayer is nothing more than a way to sooth there conscious, or perhaps just a religious ritual. It could be argued that most Christians don’t even theoretically believe in prayer. The don’t really believe that their prayers matter. The truth of the matter is that we are powerless now because of powerless prayer!
The question you need to wrestle with today is do you really believe what Ephesians 3:20-21 says:
20 Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think—according to the power that works in you— 21 to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. • Amen. (HCSB)
Your Servant,
Pastor Rich
