CLOTHED WITH POWER
27th Nov 2013
Jesus had spent three years with His disciples, trained them, encouraged them and shown them miracles, and yet His last words before He went back to His Father were, “I am going to send you what my Father has promised, but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49)
With all the input they had received there was still a missing ingredient - The power of the Holy Spirit! Jesus’ words in Acts 1:8 have the same message, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be.....”
I was very young when I gave my life to Jesus and so do not have very clear memories of how it effected me, so for me, being filled with the Holy Spirit was the most transforming event in my life. It followed a period of time when I kept meeting people who had clearly had life changing encounters which had brought an entirely new dimension into their lives, I could see that they were clothed with power. When questioned, the answer was always the same, “God has filled me with His Holy Spirit.”
At that time, the baptism in the Holy Spirit was very controversial, particularly for those from conservative evangelical backgrounds, like me. But I pressed through my prejudice, reached out in faith and received an outpouring of God’s power that made me a different person.
D.L. Moody is quoted as saying, “I am filled with the Holy Spirit, but I leak.” To live in that dimension of power is to acknowledge that I need a fresh encounter with the Holy Spirit on a daily basis. I need to be clothed with power. However, have disappointments and unanswered prayers robbed you of the expectancy of receiving God’s miracle power at work in your life every day?
Pray - “Father, I need you to fill me with the power of your Holy Spirit today, I ask you to be at work in the impossible situations I am facing, I know as Jesus said, “Apart from you I can do nothing.”
by Charles Sibthorpe
