Jn 20:21-22 Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit."
God wants to give us more power….TODAY!
In the last couple devotionals, we have looked at the dialogue between Jesus and Peter in John 21, and considered how the Lord works in each of us to reach and empower our true identity, freeing us from lack of trust, sin and rebellion, so that we can live in full loyalty and allegiance to Jesus Christ as he leads us each in our personal lives. Do you truly love me more than these? This is the question we are faced with everyday of our lives. Once we have settled our answer in our own spirits and in response to the Lord, the working out of this is a lifelong process. But it is in such a process, our daily lives, that we have to remember that God is right alongside us, and has every resource we need to live lives “loving Jesus more than these.”
As it is a process, God knows we simply need his power in our lives continuously, like the air we breathe. Especially there are moments and seasons in life when we simply need a super boost of power from the Spirit to carry us forward. Some mornings that extra shot of espresso is exactly what the barista ordered! We need the breath of Jesus (John 20:22) causing us to come alive, to be reinvigorated with hope and possibility. I am not simply talking about the continual dependence upon the breath of God, nor am I simply talking about the moment of re-birth of the Spirit (John 3:3-8), though when Jesus breaths upon his disciples he clearly has in mind the background of the first creation when God breathed into the first man, to show that he is breathing into the new humanity, re-born by his Spirit. That wonderful reality assures us that in Christ we are children of God (Romans 8:9-17), and we can live in freedom and joy, and, Oh Hallelujah, there is power in that knowledge alone!
But no, I am talking about those times when we simply need the Spirit of God to work in our lives in a fresh and revitalizing way, giving power to believe again, giving power to apply the truth of God’s Word experientially to our lives, and empowering us to move forward at critical junctures. Maybe it is that we have begun to doubt that we are really children of God. Well, my friends, this is where we need that fresh clothing of the Spirit, who affirms the truth in our inner beings, “You truly do belong to God!” With that re-affirmation, the accuser is silenced, and we are freshly energized and re-charged to go out and pursue the dream God has sung over our lives. Hallelujah! At other times, we might subtly begin to depend on our own strength until we become like a car running for too long on little or old oil. We need that divine oil change and tune up! And then at other times we notice that we are moving forward in our lives, yet we find that it appears we don’t know how to anymore, and our once-fresh vision begins to collect dust, being out of answers and frustrated as to how to make into reality the dreams we know are from God.
Though God ordains every season in his perfect and wise plan of maturing and refining us, there comes those time when simply we put up our sails and say, Lord you must blow a fresh wind if this boat is going to move! My turbo engine is in idle and it’s time to rev that engine up and accelerate! Jesus never expected us to move in inch in the right direction “apart from me” (John 15:5) and he doesn’t expect us to live without a fresh work of his Spirit for specific times and seasons we may find ourselves in. We all come to those points where we need such divine boosts – whether it is like Jehoshaphat calling upon the Lord as his only hope in battle (2 Chronicles 20:9), or like the early disciples who had special moments of need from the Spirit to pioneer the course God has set before them (Acts 2:1-4; 4:31). And you know what, God wants to give us that boost more than we could imagine. Would you ask the Lord today for that empowerment from on High that you need? And he breathed upon them…
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