The Power Within You

August 26

“When you heard the true teaching of the Good News about your salvation, you believed in Christ. And in Christ, God put His special mark of ownership upon you by giving you the Holy Spirit that He had promised. That Holy Spirit is the guarantee that we will receive what God promised for His people until God gives full freedom to those who are His to the praise and glory of His name,” Ephesians 1:13, 14.

“Do not grieve the Holy Spirit for He is God’s proof that you belong to Him. God gave you the Holy Spirit to show that God will make you free when the final day comes,” Ephesians 4:30.

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over. Sometimes we forget that there is an on-going spiritual warfare, we forget that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against wickedness, against spiritual powers in high places,” Ephesians 6:12. We are involved in an on-going battle against a defeated foe.

Jesus arose from the tomb to manifest the complete power of the Living God within Him. He alone has conquered “death, hell and the grave,” Hosea 13:14. When He “led captivity captive He gave gifts to men,” Ephesians 4:8, and by those gifts He continues to show Himself strong in the behalf of believers today.

He has not promised those who are His own shall never have trials to face or enemies to confront. Indeed, He said, “If the world persecuted Me, you can expect that it will hate you,” John 15:18, I John 3:13.

In John 7:7, Jesus said to His own brothers who did not believe in Him, “The world cannot hate you; but me it hates, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.” However, after the resurrection of the Lord, two of His brothers, James and Jude, were touched by the Holy Spirit and boldly proclaimed His truth until their own martyrdom.

In Acts 1:13-15 we are given the names of those who were present when the Holy Spirit fell upon believers and that list included Mary, the mother of Jesus among many others:
“When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.”

As these believers of old needed the power of the Holy Spirit to withstand the persecution that was unleashed against them, so must we appropriate the gift of His presence and power within us to battle the evil of our day. Let us surrender ourselves to the glorious member of the Triune Godhead who indwells us so we need never bow before any earthly potentate or ever succumb to the wiles of the enemy of our soul.