Daily Devotional For Thursday, July 17, 2025
Good morning Southside. I pray your day goes well. If you read yesterday’s devotional, you know I talked about how the modern church is so dependent on everything but God. The modern church has become dependent on performances, personalities, programs, and paid professionals. But what seems lacking to me in the modern church is another “P” – the power of God. When we go to the Book of Acts, chapter 2, an uneducated fisherman stood up to preach. Peter had never been to college let alone seminary. He had never taken a preaching course. All he had going for him was his relationship to the Person of Jesus Christ.
Peter stood up to preach with the other disciples near him and God showed up in a very powerful way. Jesus had promised them the Holy Spirit after He was gone in John 16:7,”But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you” (NASB). In Acts 2, Jesus kept His promise. The Holy Spirit came and empowered Peter and his preaching through his use of the prophet Joel and the writings of David. The Bible says that 3,000 came to Christ and joined the church. That was 2,500% growth in one day.
There were no screens and Powerpoint presentations for the sermon. There was no praise team and praise band. There were no lights, lasers, smoke, no programs, no paid professionals – just the power of the Holy Spirit. The modern church has taken the bait from the devil that it needs great performances to get the people to come. We come to believe the lie that we need multimillion dollar facilities to hold the people when they come. And once they come, we have to do something to keep them coming back. So, in comes the hyped up programs, and the paid professionals who with their skills are the attraction.
Please do not misunderstand me. I am for programs, praise teams and great preaching, but what I am not for is the belief we can do this on our own. We have gone from evangelism to entertaining. We have gone from discipleship to attendees. We have gone from the Bible to pep talks. When I was growing up, if you asked someone what church they go to, they would name the church. Today, I hear mostly, “I go to where such-and-such is the pastor or preacher.” We make it about the personality and performance of the preacher and/or praise team rather than the Person of Jesus Christ. The Power and Presence of the Holy Spirit is not an add-on. He is the source and cause of what makes the church, the church.
If you read Acts, you see that prayer was behind it all so that the Holy Spirit would work. Today in most churches, prayer is an item on an agenda or some ritual we perform with no real expectation of stepping out in faith so God can move. When you read Acts, Peter, who previously had denied knowing Jesus 3 times and went into hiding after Jesus’ death, once seeing the resurrected Jesus, stood before thousands with no fear. How do you explain that? – the Holy Spirit.
In Acts 4, Peter and John are arrested and brought before the Jewish Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin, and questioned why they were sharing the Gospel. They did not back down. It was so shocking to the paid professional Jewish leaders that Acts 4:13 says this: “Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus” (NASB). Why did the Sanhedrin think this – the Holy Spirit. In Acts 5, God was working through the Apostles to do miracles and wonders such as healing the sick and casting out demons, that God added to the church. Why? – the Holy Spirit. In Acts 8, the church is spreading out, Saul begins to persecute the church and Phillip gets moved by the Holy Spirit to go share the Gospel to an Ethiopian eunuch. After his baptism, Phillip was snatched up and taken to Azotus. How? – the Holy Spirit. In Acts 10 racial barriers are broken down? How? – the Holy Spirit. In Acts 11, the church at Antioch is founded. How? – the Holy Spirit. In Acts 12, while Peter sits in prison in shackles for preaching the Gospel, he is immediately set free. How? – the Holy Spirit.
I dream of a church where we get out of the mindset we need performances, personalities, programs, paid professionals and instead we need the power of the Holy Spirit. I dream of a church where we do not make our potential success based on our abilities, talents, resources, and etc, but instead through prayer we rely on the power of the Holy Spirit. A church where God provides some of the most unlikely people to do His will with limited resources to make the great name of Jesus known just as He did in the Book of Acts. 1 Corinthians 1:27 says this: “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong” (NASB).
I believe that the church of God can do more in one month empowered by the Holy Spirit than it can in 10 years with the best buildings, bands, budgets, programs and personalities. We have become so professional that we have forgotten to be confessional. Meaning we are so about our abilities that we fail to confess that “Unless the Lord builds the house, the laborers labor in vain” (Ps. 127:1).
Assignment: I want you to reflect on something – do you tend to do what you do by relying on your own abilities, talents, skills, and money Or do you start first with prayer asking the Holy Spirit to use you to do His will wherever He desires and with whoever He desires and however He desires? In other words, when you are asked to do something, let's say at church, what runs first through your mind – your abilities, skills, talents etc. or the power of the Holy Spirit?
Scripture To Meditate On: Zechariah 4:6, “You will not succeed by your own strength or by your own power. The power will come from My Spirit, says the Lord of heaven’s armies” (ICB).
Prayer To Pray: “Lord, I have to ask for forgiveness in this area. I tend to do things with my own strength, abilities, skills, education, experience and talents. I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to first come to you in humble prayer not to ask You to bless what I want, but to ask You to bless me with what You want. Thank You Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside! – Pastor Kelly