The cow path leading to the pasture on my grandmother’s farm was electrified with a pulsed current. As kids we were warned about it, but of course, nothing doing but we dare each other to grab the wire. It was unpleasant, like hitting your funny bone, but not crippling or burning. We were so brave! We had touched the power!
A ceiling fan circulating the air in a room. That’s power. A red-faced gymnast hoisting a 200-lb. barbell overhead. That’s power. An excavator moving bucketloads of boulders. That’s power. A crane elevating a fully loaded shipping container into the air. That’s power. A rocket launched off its pad. That’s power. The moving of the Holy Spirit. That’s power that eclipses all!
Wondering about this Aslan she’s heard about, Lucy asked Mr. Beaver: ‘Is he safe?” Mr. Beaver responded, shocked: ‘Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.’
When the Old Testament prophets spoke about the Day of the Lord, God’s wrath, His holiness, they employed terrifying imagery to communicate the intense power on display when Creator God was on the move seeking His people’s repentance and their turning away from idols. There was no mention of His being safe. When David penned Psalms of God’s holiness, he didn’t attempt to minimize the overwhelming impact of the presence of Divinity. When God interrogated Job’s vaunted wisdom, He didn’t hesitate to corner Job with myriad unanswerable questions, not so subtly showing the superiority of His power.
When the disciples had been Pentecosted, invaded by the power of the Holy Spirit, emptied of the Old and replenished with the indwelling source of ‘all things have become New,’ they soon noticed how thoroughly they had been transformed. First, the phenomenon of the mastery of unstudied foreign languages, then the jaw-dropping boldness of Peter, stepping forward and delivering a soul-searching Gospel message to the Nations, resulting in the influx of 3000 new members to their little band, and then all those baptisms! Something was up. Then, Scripture says, the Lord added to their number daily, those who were coming to life. God’s power had been unleashed.
We live in the days of the unleashed power of God. What was available to them is available to us. Pentecost permanently changed the course of history, permanently changed the lives of Jesus’ followers, permanently alters the life accomplishments of each soul submitted to that power. We are the blessed ones. Looking forward to seeing your shining-with-hope faces tomorrow at 10 AM, 3 PM, UK. PD
Don graduated from Regent University in 1988 and moved to France for seven years, coming back to the US briefly to marry Sue in 1990. The work in France included working in a Christian School and helping plant a church before returning in 1995. He’s been pastor of Peninsula Vineyard since 1999. He enjoys counseling, especially married couples, traveling back to France (with Sue), reading, doing Sudoku puzzles and sleuthing out good, dark chocolate. Don serves as the senior pastor of the Vineyard Church Peninsula, in Newport News, Virginia.