Power and Promises: Where Does Jesus’ Power Enable our Revolutionary-ness?

by Lisa Allgood, Executive Presbyter

If His promises are the basis for the power we claim to be Revolutionaries in His name, then how does He equip us to be Revolutionaries? How are we transformed in and through His love for us?

He has promised to Be With Us Always – even to the end of the age.

Jesus promised us that the Spirit of God Himself would come to care for and guide us, teaching us and reminding us of our real identity – an identity different than that valued by the world. By faith, we can appropriate the Spirit’s presence and power each day.

And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. (John 14:16–19)

He promised to See us.

He told us our love for God can be measured by how we treat others. Because God notices every good deed we do as if He were the one receiving it, even if no one else sees it.  

Whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward. (Matthew 10:42)

Believe it or not – He promised us Power.

Jesus promised His disciples would do greater things than anything miracle He had done – even raising Lazarus from the dead. The “greater works than these” would come when His disciples carried the Good News of God’s Kingdom into the world. Their works, and ours, are not more spectacular, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, they stretch far beyond the Middle East and into every nation – and His promise is still true for us today.

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. (John 14:12–13)

He promised us Influence.

Spiritually speaking, Jesus provides the entire world with endless, inextinguishable light through us (John 1:5; 8:12). In the same way God revealed His presence to Moses through a burning bush, Jesus Christ’s light radiates through His followers, bringing glory to the Father.

You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:14–16)

And then what does our Revolutionary-ness accomplish…?  Keep reading…