Power costs.

As crazy as it may sound, I believe that a word that I heard tonight at my home group may be the most significant word that I have heard up to this point in my life. Sure, if there hadn’t been other words previous to this one, I might not have realized just how important this is, but regardless this one will change my life.

We were fortunate enough to have another one of our interns there tonight, meaning we had four 3rd year students and one graduate - not bad. Well, one of the interns started to talk about how we must be dependent on God. We must abandon our other options and sell out completely for God. He likened it to his time before he came to Bethel and did not hold a reputation for being a student at Bethel. Before he came he only had God. God was his only source. He didn’t have leaders to fall back on to give him prophetic words or encourage him. He had his bible and he had God. Other people are great, we need them, but we must be dependent on God.

Then he shifted to a powerful dream he had. I won’t share the details, but he ends up in an argument with the Holy Spirit, who finally answers him with, “Power costs!” This is in the context of restoring the anointing from the 1950s healing revival. Purity is something that is quite often looked at with a negative light among Christians these days. The Religious Police go after purity like the Georgia Highway Patrol go after speeders. So many people make compromises because they don’t want to be religious. So we end up with a huge group of non-religious Christians who walk the line more than Johnny Cash.

Power costs a lot. Walking in absolute purity is just part of the price we have to pay to walk in power. We have to really want it. Many times I have asked myself how I would act if every person I prayed for got healed. The answer is that I would have to pray for every person I ran into with a visible problem. There would be no option. I would have to pull over my car, let my food thaw out, and delay getting to wherever I was going next in order to see that each person got the healing that God was going to bring to them. But with that would come a whole lot of rejection. I would probably be made fun of extensively and take the brunt of many rude comments and expletives.

So is power worth the cost? You have to determine that for yourself. To be completely honest, I had to think about all that it would cost me. I had to realize that I must start paying the price now. You still pay the power bill when only one light is on, you just pay more when every light is on. I must start acting as though every person will get healed. There is no other option. Power is worth the all the hard work. Power is worth the cost.