Empowered

A friend emailed me the other day to share the closing prayer a group leader had used that morning. She felt I would appreciate it and said, "The leader asked us to say our names each time we came to the word 'yours'. Try it I know you will like it."


I did and now I pass it on here.

Christ Has No Body by Teresa of Avila

Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion of this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet.
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

What a privilege!

There is something that I have discovered though....

As His representative, we need the One whom Jesus promised to send to empower us.

Gradually, I have learned to rely upon this One, who is the Holy Spirit.  The result?  Opportunities have been more plentiful and the fruit more bountiful!

Certainly we can make a difference in this world by our kind acts and words, but to make an eternal difference, we need the power of our God. 
That power comes in the form of His Spirit.

Scripture is filled with examples of how the Spirit worked in and through Jesus followers once He had returned to Heaven.
Men who were uneducated spoke with power and knowledge and hearts were reached, lives were changed.

Innumerable prayers offered for the church spoke of the need for the Spirit to teach and empower.
Ephesians Three, verse Sixteen is an example,

"that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man;"

In page after page we discover more of those riches under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit.
And then time after time we will be able to proclaim those riches to others!

On Fridays I have the joy of spending time at a drug/alcohol rehab.  My visits have spanned eleven years now.
There has never been a time when I did not speak of Papa and His love.

Yet....

The past few years have seen a greater freedom to speak and equally a hunger to hear. 
It is as if I am an observer. 
The words just come.
And as they come, more and more residents grow quiet, gather and listen.
Listen with open faces and shining eyes.

What has made the difference? 
The Holy Spirit.
I am dependent upon Him, not my knowledge.

Yes, it is critical to study.  It gives the Spirit the opportunity to draw out richer truth to share.
But without the Spirit we lack the power.

That power raised our Savior from the grave.
It is available to raise anyone from the dead.

Imagine our God has chosen us to be vessels through whom He desires to demonstrate that power!