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Christians need to understand
what the Bible says about the nature of
spiritual power, why we need it, how God imparts
it, and why He does it.
We often receive questions that,
in one way or another, relate to the issue of
spiritual power in the life of the
individual Christian, and in the local church as a
body of believers. Those questions have made us
aware of the need to offer some teaching help on
this subject. So today we begin a series of
articles on the subject of spiritual power. Our
anchor point is going to be a phrase that we
find in the first chapter of Colossians. The
Apostle Paul tells the Colossian believers:
"For this reason we also, since
the day we heard it [heard about their faith in
Christ and the fruit it was producing], do not
cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may
be filled with the knowledge of His will in all
wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may
walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him,
being fruitful in every good work and increasing
in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all
might, according to His glorious power, for all
patience and longsuffering with joy; giving
thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be
partakers of the inheritance of the saints in
the light. He has delivered us from the power of
darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the
Son of His love, in whom we have redemption
through His blood, the forgiveness of sins."
(Colossians 1:9-14)
In this series I want to draw
your attention in particular to the first phrase
of verse eleven: "strengthened with all might,
according to His glorious power." We're going to
see that in the original language, this short
phrase is jam-packed with meaning. What is
genuine spiritual power? What is it not?
How does it manifest itself? What is its
purpose? Can we measure it? Should we measure
it? If so, how?
Misconceptions About Spiritual
Power
Today there’s a good deal of
misunderstanding, misinformation, and even
disinformation in the Christian church about the
nature and purpose of spiritual power. Let me
give you a few examples.
Some people think that God gives
spiritual power so that you can have the
material things you want in this life – that
health and wealth, in and of themselves, are
primary signs that the power of God is upon you,
and working in you and through you.
Some people think that numerical
church growth, in and of itself, is a sign of
spiritual power. The equation that many people
set up in their minds goes like this: The larger
the building, the greater the size of the
congregation, the bigger the offering, the
larger the budget, the larger and longer the
list of church activities and programs, the
greater the spiritual power must be.
Some people think that a church
leader who has a dynamic personality – someone
who is a charismatic leader, or an eloquent
speaker, or has a particularly attention-getting
and attention-holding platform presence – some
people think that these things, in and of
themselves, are evidences of spiritual power.
Some people think that certain
kinds of externals in worship are signs of
spiritual power. On the one hand, there are
those who think that ornate clerical robes, and
golden crosses and other religious symbols held
aloft, and impressive processions, and so on,
are signs of spiritual power. On the other hand,
some think that a congregation whipped up into a
frenzy of emotion by so-called worship leaders
is a sign that spiritual power is present.
We could name many other things
that people in churches often equate with
spiritual power. But the problem with all of
these things is that they miss the point, and
they are based on unsound and un-Biblical
reasoning.
This is easy to demonstrate. Many
unbelievers — people
completely lacking in any kind of genuine
spiritual power —
have health and wealth. And today, sadly,
many of those people are in Evangelical
churches, because all they are hearing is a
health-and-wealth false gospel. They are
building the treasures of this world, but they
remain apart from Christ, they don’t understand
the one true Gospel. Satan is quite content to
let them have those comforts if it helps to keep
them from Christ.
At the same time, there are many
people in churches who from all outward
appearances are in the deepest need
— people with
serious financial struggles, people with
difficult health problems. But many of these
people, who from all outward appearances lack
health and wealth, possess spiritual power that
most of the world, and even much of the church,
knows nothing about.
It’s the same story when church
growth becomes a measurement of spiritual power.
There are churches where thousands and even tens
of thousands come together every Sunday, but
where the spiritual temperature is about thirty
degrees below zero. Despite the big numbers,
despite the big facility, despite the long and
ever-growing list of programs, despite all of
the high-sounding purpose statements, despite
the outward professionalism and competency,
there is no spiritual power. And yet there are
other churches, both large and small, where the
power of God is at work in marvelous ways
— and often without
a big budget, or a big facility, and even in
very humble circumstances.
It’s the same when we look at the
dynamic personality as a supposed evidence of
spiritual power. Throughout all of its history,
the church has had more than its share of
charlatans and imposters. The New Testament
warns us repeatedly about such people. Yes,
there are men of great outward personal gifts
who are indeed used of God in mighty ways. But
beyond those men are many, many more who are not
so gifted as the world sees things, but they are
also vessels into which the power of God has
been poured, in astounding ways that the unsaved
human eye cannot begin to fathom.
And it’s the same problem with
the externals of worship. Most of the churches
that are steeped in the pomp and ceremony of
religious formalism are absolutely cold
spiritually. The same is true for most of the
contemporary churches where so-called worship
leaders employ the world’s methods to whip the
crowd into an emotional frenzy each week. Beyond
the emotionalism lies shallowness and weakness.
There’s no spiritual power.
Invalid Yardsticks
You see, there are two problems
with all of these things as measurements of
spiritual power. The first problem is that those
measurements
use the wrong yardstick. The second problem
is that they use that wrong yardstick to measure the
wrong things. The two
go hand in hand.
The only yardstick that counts
when it comes to spiritual things is the
inspired, infallible, uniquely authoritative
Word of God. And the only measurements that
matter are the ones that God Himself makes.
God’s
Yardstick, God’s Evaluation
We
need to understand the nature of God’s
measurements. God does not impart spiritual
power, and God does not measure spiritual power,
by outward measurements. God isn’t concerned
about externals. God is concerned with the
issues of the heart.
In First Samuel chapter 16, we
read that when God sent the prophet Samuel to
anoint the man of God’s choosing to be the new
king of Israel, Samuel came to a man named Eliab.
And he said, "Surely this must be the man that
God has chosen as king! Look at him! He’s a tall
man, a man of impressive appearance." But God
said to Samuel, in chapter 16, verse 7, "Do not
look at his appearance or at his physical
stature, because I have rejected him. For the
Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at
the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at
the heart."
In the Gospels, we find the Lord
Jesus Christ addressing that kind of thinking
many, many times with the chief priests, the
scribes, and the Pharisees
— the religious leaders
of His days on earth. Jesus told them in no
uncertain terms that they were very clever and
well-practiced at making a good religious show,
but there was no power. He said to them, in
Matthew chapter 23, beginning at verse 25:
"Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the
outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are
full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind
Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup
and dish, that the outside of them may be clean
also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs
which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but
inside are full of dead men’s bones and all
uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear
righteous to men, but inside you are full of
hypocrisy and lawlessness."
Understanding Spiritual Power
In this series, we're going to
look carefully at what God's Word says about the
issue of spiritual power. Christians, both
individually and in local assemblies of the Body
of Christ, need to understand several things.
First of all, we need to
understand what the Bible says about the
nature of spiritual power. We need to
understand that it is supernatural power.
Secondly, we need to understand
the need for spiritual power, as
individual Christians and in the church
corporately. That need has to do with the fact
that in our flesh we are weak, and it has to do
with the fact that there are many counterfeits
that claim to be spiritual power but are not.
Thirdly, we need to understand
the magnitude of the power that is at
work when genuine spiritual power is operating
within Christians individually and in the church
corporately. It is the same power that created
the universe. It is the same power that raised
Jesus Christ from the dead. It is the same power
that saved us from eternal death. It is the same
power that will raise the dead in Christ, and
will take them up, along with those who are
alive and remain, to meet the Lord when He comes
again.
And fourthly, we need to
understand the purpose for spiritual
power. The reason that God imparts spiritual
power is not so that Christians individually or
the church corporately can do our will, have our
way, but so that we can do God’s will, and do it
God’s way.
Next: The Nature of Spiritual
Power
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