One day my wife ordered a beautiful lamp. I’m not very handy, but I could get the lamp out of the box. I got it all set up and thought, “I can’t wait to see how this works!” I turned it on, and—nothing happened.

I checked everything out. The bulb looked good. The shade was perfect. Then I noticed something: I had forgotten to plug it in! With no power, even the best lamp in the world isn’t very helpful.

That’s true in life. When a person is sick or in a terrible accident—they can want to do a lot of things, but they have no power.

We can lack power spiritually too. For Christians, power in the New Testament is related to one person: the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus told His disciples that He was leaving this world, He said a very odd thing: “It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7, NIV). Some translations have “Helper” or “Comforter” instead of “Advocate.” The word means to come alongside someone to give assistance. That’s the Holy Spirit!

The disciples felt badly about it, because Jesus had been their teacher for three and a half years. I’m sure they were saying, “No, no, no, it’s not good that You go!” But Jesus said, “Unless I go, I can’t send the Holy Spirit.”

The Holy Spirit is the most overlooked topic in Christendom. So who is He?

In the mystery of the Godhead, we have one God revealed to us in the personhood of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You don’t comprehend that? Neither do I! No one truly does. But the Holy Spirit is God, just as much as the Father is God and Jesus is God.

The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ. Jesus Christ is now seated at the right hand of the Father, but growing up, I would hear people say, “Oh, I feel Jesus in this place,” or “Did you accept Jesus in your heart?” How can Jesus be in our hearts if He’s seated in heaven? Because when we repent and put our faith in Jesus, God sends the Holy Spirit into our hearts. That’s what it means to be born again. Through the Holy Spirit, we have Christ living inside us.

That’s why Jesus said, “It’s better for you that I go.” He’d been with the disciples physically, but here’s what the disciples found out: this didn’t stop their weakness. When Jesus was arrested, they all fled. They had no power. Jesus was unable to give them the power He planned to give them until He died on the cross, paid the price for our sins, and went back to heaven. Then He could send the invisible Holy Spirit to us.

The Bible says in Romans 8:9, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ” (NIV). “Oh, no,” some say, “I’m a member of First Baptist,” or “First Methodist,” or “Brooklyn Tabernacle.” But that means zero. What makes us Christians is that God has come to dwell inside us, through faith in Christ. The Holy Spirit resides in every believer, empowering us.

The Bible says that this is better than having a physical Jesus on earth. I don’t know how many Christians really believe that! But Jesus said, “No, you need Me inside you, changing you from the inside out.” That’s the power of the Holy Spirit.

To live victoriously, to be what God wants us to be, we need the power of God through the Holy Spirit to be operational in our lives. We need to be, as it were, plugged in. Why don’t we open our hearts in a new way to the Holy Spirit today?

Prayer

Holy Spirit, thank You for giving us the power we need each day. Come and teach us who You are. As we read the Word, give us revelation so we can learn Your ways, Your gifts, Your fruit, how important You are to our lives.

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