“They turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6)

When you read such a statement, what goes through your mind? How does it make you feel? Does it create in you a longing to see this happen in your day? Maybe you would echo the words of the prophet, “O Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years! In the midst of the years make it known”  (Hab.3:2). Maybe you have listened to the elders or read the stories of those times when God moved and lives were completely transformed. This may be your story and now you long to see your children or their generations know God, not merely intellectually but to experience His power and transforming grace. Is this possible for the day you live in? Would God do for you what He has done for your foreparents or previous generations?

Jesus has come to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. “While He prayed, the heaven was opened. And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, ‘You are My beloved Son; in whom I am well pleased'” (Lk.3:21-22). From there He was led into the desert, by the Spirit, to be tested for 40 days. Overcoming temptation and the devil, Luke states that Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit. (Lk.4:14). The effects of that empowering are felt throughout Galilee and points further. The gospel is preached, miracles occur, demonic forces overpowered and lives forever changed.

I wonder, maybe you do as well, of how much preaching occurs in our day without this empowering of the Spirit? Or as the apostle Paul would write, “My message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (I Cor.2:4). In many places the sermons are prepared and the service carefully crafted but there so often seems to be this one thing lacking, the power of the Spirit. Now some, maybe many, would chastise me for such a statement or seek to prove me wrong by well crafted arguments, even quoting Scripture to validate their position. My response is simply this. Are you seeing people coming to faith in Christ? Are you seeing lives changed by the Gospel? Do miracles occur when you pray for the sick? Are those demonized being set free? And the questions could go on.

The Scriptures are clear. “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, and He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” (Acts 10:38). If this be said of our Lord and King, how much more must it be said of us?

His words were clear to the early disciples. They are clear to us. “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be My witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Wait on Him till you be clothed with His power and then boldly take the Gospel to a needy world. Only then will we see our world turned upside down.

Blessings!

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