26 - The Importance of Power

People generally come to God for one of two reasons: either their life has ended up in shambles and they’re left with no other option, or they find themselves in a situation where the presence of the Holy Spirit becomes so strong that their resistance and confusion melt away and they rush into God’s arms. In other words most people turn to God either because they’re desperate or because they’ve been awakened by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

What Jesus taught His disciples before the crowds of Samaritans arrived at Jacob’s well was that they were about to see many turn to God because a miracle would take place. Large numbers of people were going to quickly come under conviction and surrender to God. The time between hearing and believing would be miraculously shortened to such a degree that those who were presenting the gospel would end up working side by side with those who were helping people receive Jesus as their Savior and Lord. The disciples were about to be part of a quick work, so Jesus was preparing them so they would understand what was happening; and at the same time He was cautioning them to remain humble in the midst of such amazing fruitfulness. In Judea Jesus had already begun seeing great fruitfulness (Jn 4:1), but in the future that fruitfulness would only continue to increase; and His disciples needed to know why it was happening, and they needed to know how to react when it happened. They needed to understand that the huge ingathering of souls that would begin in a few minutes was the result of the power of God, and so do we.