Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

The Spirit of Power!

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you …” Acts 1v8

We continue our focus on the Holy Spirit leading up to Pentecost.

In Acts these are in the very last words of Jesus, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.”  The Greek is “dunamis” which comes into English as “dynamite”.

Here is the truth: you and I can work hard at many things, but unless the Holy Spirit is enabling and empowering, all the effort is not going to go very far at all. As the Psalmist writes, “Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labour in vain.” (Psalm 127v1) Or as Zechariah records God saying, “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit.” (Zechariah 4v6).

As a car needs fuel and a torch needs a battery, so a disciple of Jesus needs the Holy Spirit. The car, the torch and the disciple all exist without them, but they are not going to be effective. Have you received the quantum leap empowering of the Holy Spirit? Are you more like a torch whose battery is running rather low? Are you like one of the virgins in Matthew 25 who were running out of oil for their lamps?

Jesus told the disciples to “wait around” until the Holy Spirit came on them as promised. In practice that meant the disciples “joined together constantly in prayer” for 10 days … What does it mean for you and I?

With love and blessing,

Roland