Have you ever read something in the Bible and you run across a verse and it captures your mind and heart?  You begin to meditate on it, and wonder why the verse is so intriguing to you and then you realize that the Holy Spirit wants to reveal a deeper truth.

I had been reading about the church in Acts and was struck by the power that was demonstrated throughout that book.  Knowing the theological thoughts that the power that was exhibited,was just for that day of the first century church, but I asked God a question:  "Lord if you are the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow then what we see in Acts should be happening in today's church, and why isn't it?

 As I asked this question my mind went back to the visit I had made to St Paul's Cathedral in London,  It was a beautiful church and was a great testimony to God or was suppose to be, but it was dead, the Spirit of God was not there and it made my heart sad,  People were coming in for mass but why?  To perform meaningless rituals and that day I saw what Jesus was talking about when He told the Pharisees that they were like white washed tombs, looking all beautiful and supposedly set apart for God's glory, but sadly God was forgotten and set aside.
 Then my mind went immediately to when Cary and I were living in San Diego.  We lived in a small community that was impoverished not only physically but spiritually.  In one part of the city there was an intersection and at each corner set 3 churches and  fourth church was down the street from this intersection,  It struck me that a place that had four churches in such close proximity, there should have been some change going on in that area, but sadly there was not.  I was sad and overwhelmed with grief.  I know I should have been different and spoke up but at that time I was just exactly like the people who attended those church.  I did not have an understanding of the power of the Holy Spirit in my life.

The verse Romans 8:11 captured my attention one day. This verse I have read many times but on this day last month the Holy Spirit wanted to show me something deeper.  The verse says that "if the power of the Spirit of him who raised Jesus is living in you...I stopped and thought "Wow, is that really saying what it is saying?"  It can't be!

 I love how God works....LOL  When I turned on the radio later that day,  I heard the song by Jeremy Camp  called the "Same Power".  In that song the chorus goes:

the same power that rose from Jesus from the grave
the same that commands the dead to wake
Lives in us, Lives is us!

WOW!  I thought I had heard every Jeremy Camp song as I love his music but had not heard this song before.  And from that moment I began to think about the power of the Holy Spirit in my life and in the Church.

 As you well know God always makes us take a look at our own hearts and our own sin before He allows us to look at others.  It was during this time of questioning about where that power was in my life and the life of the church, that I had to come face to face with the disobedience that was operating in my own life and rightly come to a correct understanding of who God really is!

During this time, I came across another verse that was just confirmation to what God was showing me in his Word and this verse has not only been done in my own personal devotion time but it showed up in the the Bible study material that we are doing in our women's Bible study about the Armor of God, which I find interesting.
In Ephesians 1:17-20 Paul is talking to the church at Ephesus and in this portion of scripture, it is a prayer he is praying for the church:  I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better.  I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people and his (Now watch this!) incomparably great power for us who believe.  Did you catch that?!!  Paul is praying that we would know God's incomparable power!

For those who do not believe that the power of Acts is possible today here is the ending of that prayer:

 That power is the same power as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked not only in this age but also in the one to come!! (Ephesians 1:19-21)

After reading this prayer and asking that the Lord would honor this prayer in my life, I prayed, " Lord we both know that your power is not fully operating in my life.  You will have to do what you need to do in my life. And as a human who always needs to do my part I asked my Lord, " Jesus what do I need to do?"

This is the question I woke up this morning on my heart.  As I was thinking about strengths and weaknesses that each of us have, the Lord led me to this verse 2 Corinthians 12:9:  My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.  WOW WOW WOW!  Did you catch that?  The power that the church and each of us need in our lives is found in our weaknesses!

Which leads me to bring light to a deception that the enemy of our souls wants us to believe. When we lead from our strengths why would we need God?   The strengths we have for ministry and for living our lives have been developed out of our weaknesses.  A strength can not be developed apart from a weakness.  It only becomes a strength when we allow the power of the Holy Spirit to use that weakness for his glory.  But when we forget and begin to rely solely on those strengths to guide us and help us live our lives and conduct ministry we leave out the power of God, because His power is made perfect in weakness and hence one of the many reasons why we are not seeing the same power that we see in the pages of Act come alive in the church today.  We need to take a step back and evaluate our lives.  Are we trying to lead from our strengths only?  We say we want to be real, but then we refuse to humble ourselves before God and admit we can't do anything apart from Christ and go with our own agenda based on the strengths that we have that were made strengths only by the power of the Holy Spirit in the first place.   Allow the Holy Spirit our lives and allow Him to show us where we are trying to lead in our own strengths, not in our weakness in conjunction with the Holy Spirit.