Jesus did not promise the Spirit's power so His people could feel impressive. He promised it so ordinary people could tell the truth about Him, bring healing where things are broken, and become different people along the way.
The power of the Holy Spirit is God's own strength at work in and through the people who belong to Jesus. In Scripture it always has a job: witness, healing, gifts that build other people up, and a changed life.
It was never given as a feeling to chase or a show to put on. Acts 1:8 ties the power and the purpose together in one sentence, and we have no business pulling them apart.
Who the Spirit is, how the Spirit is received, and what everyday life in the Spirit looks like each have their own page on this site, and I will point you to them as we go. This one is about the power itself. What it is for, what it looks like when it shows up, and what it is not.
The last conversation before the ascension opens with a political question. In Acts 1:6 the disciples ask whether this is the moment Jesus will restore the kingdom to Israel. After everything, they are still picturing a throne in Jerusalem and Roman soldiers packing up.
Jesus does not answer the question they asked. He answers the one they needed.
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Acts 1:8Notice the grammar. The power and the witness arrive in the same breath. As a Bible Odyssey article on the Spirit in Luke and Acts puts it, Luke makes the point that “the Spirit's empowerment is for mission, not political ends.” The power was never for taking over. It was for telling the truth about a risen King whose Kingdom had already come.
Then Luke spends the rest of the book showing that sentence come true, one widening circle at a time.
Jesus tells them to wait in Jerusalem until they are clothed with power from on high. The waiting was short and specific. It lasted days, not a lifetime.
The day of Pentecost. Peter says this is what Joel spoke about in the last days, and he means the days he is standing in, the closing days of the old covenant age. Three thousand people hear the gospel in their own languages.
Threatened by the council, the church prays for boldness rather than safety. Luke says the apostles went on testifying to the resurrection with great power.
Philip preaches Christ in a city most Jews avoided. People are healed, the oppressed are set free, and Luke says there was great joy in that city.
The Spirit falls on a Roman officer's household while Peter is still talking. Nobody laid hands on anybody. The power went where the prejudice said it could not.
Every time the power shows up in Acts, somebody new hears about Jesus. That is still the best test of whether what we are seeing is the real thing.
The Greek word behind power in Acts 1:8 is dunamis, and there is a full study of dunamis on this site, including why the old sermon line about it meaning dynamite does not hold up. The short version is that it means strength or ability to do something. The real question is always what.
Read Acts and the letters side by side and four answers keep coming back.
In Acts 4:13 the council notices the courage of Peter and John, realizes they are ordinary men with no training, and recognizes they had been with Jesus. The power turned fishermen into people who could not stop talking about Him.
Acts 3 starts with a man who had never walked, lying at a temple gate. Peter has no money, only a name and a hand. Healing is the Kingdom setting things right in a human body, and Jesus never treated sickness as a friend.
1 Corinthians 12:7 says the Spirit's manifestation is given for the common good. Prophecy, tongues, words of wisdom and knowledge, faith, miracles. See our guide to spiritual gifts. Every one of them points outward.
2 Timothy 1:7 says the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. Paul puts power in the same sentence as love and self-control, which is where it belongs.
Most talk about the Spirit's power stops after the first three. Paul did not. In Ephesians 3 he prays that believers would be strengthened with power through the Spirit in their inner being, so that Christ would live in their hearts and they would grasp how wide and deep His love is. Power, in that prayer, is what lets you finally believe you are loved.
That kind of power rarely makes it onto a stage. It shows up as patience you did not used to have, and forgiveness you could not manage last year. We cover that side of things in the fruit of the Spirit, and it is every bit as supernatural as a healing.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
There are two ways to get this wrong, and they sit on opposite sides of the church. One side sells power as a spectacle. The other side says the power went quiet nineteen centuries ago. We think both are mistaken.
Power is volume, atmosphere and people falling down. If you did not feel it, you did not get it. The anointed person on the platform has it, and you receive it by getting close to them.
Two men at a gate with no music, one sentence and a hand. Then Peter asks the crowd why they stare “as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk” (Acts 3:12).
The gifts of the Spirit are active today. Healing, prophecy, tongues, words of knowledge and miracles did not end with the apostles, and at Sound of Heaven we pray for the sick expecting God to move. That is our position and we hold it without embarrassment.
The other side deserves to be heard at its strongest. It points out that miracles in Scripture cluster around moments of new revelation, Moses and Elijah and then Jesus and the apostles. It notes that Hebrews 2:4 describes signs and wonders confirming the message to the first generation. And it reads 1 Corinthians 13:10, where the partial gives way when completeness comes, as a sign the gifts had an end date. Some people who share our reading of the first century argue that completeness arrived with the covenant transition in AD 70 and the gifts went with it.
We think that is wrong. Peter said the promise was for his hearers, their children, and all who are far off (Acts 2:39). The Kingdom that came did not come with an expiry date, and the King who healed still heals. The real point of 1 Corinthians 13 is that love outlasts every gift, which is a call to use the gifts lovingly, not a clock counting them down.
Honesty cuts our way too. Plenty of what gets called a miracle is exaggeration, and a church that fakes power does more harm than a church that never asks for any. Both errors land on the same person. One tells the sick believer there is no point asking. The other tells them they stayed sick because they did not believe hard enough. We refuse both.
In Acts 1, what does Jesus say the Spirit's power is for?
The disciples asked about the kingdom being restored to Israel. Jesus redirected them to witness. The power arrives with a mission already attached, and it moves outward from Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria and beyond.
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”
2 Corinthians 4:7Paul wrote that to Corinth, a church that was very impressed by impressive people. He was describing himself. In the next lines he lists being pressed, confused, hunted and knocked down, and never destroyed. The power did not remove the weakness. It lived inside it.
Later in the same letter he asks three times for something painful to be taken away, and Jesus answers, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). We have a whole study on power made perfect in weakness, and it belongs right next to this one.
Scripture knows the Spirit's power mainly by what it does, not by a sensation in the room. Some days you will feel it. On many faithful days you will not, and nothing is missing.
If a person claims great power and treats people carelessly, believe the way they treat people. The Spirit who gives gifts is the same Spirit who produces gentleness.
A hospital corridor, a break room in Hauppauge, a kitchen table in Deer Park at eleven at night. Most of the book of Acts happens in houses and on streets, not in sanctuaries.
If you asked God for healing, for yourself or someone you love, and it did not come, hear this plainly. It was not a verdict on your faith, and it was not God holding back from you. Paul himself left his coworker Trophimus sick in Miletus (2 Timothy 4:20), and nobody in the story blames Trophimus.
Keep going to your doctors. Keep asking. And do not carry it alone. Our prayer team would count it a privilege to pray with you.
Standing in Cornelius' house, Peter summarizes the ministry of Jesus in a single sentence. If you want to know what the power of the Holy Spirit looks like, this is the picture.
“How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.”
Acts 10:38Jesus, fully God and fully human, carried out His earthly ministry in the Spirit's power. The same Spirit has been given to everyone who follows Him.
Before Luke mentions healing, he says doing good. Power that does not leave someone's life better is not this power.
Bodies mattered to Jesus. Healing was never a sideshow to His message. It was the Kingdom showing up in flesh and bone.
The accuser's work in people's lives looks like lies, fear, sickness and bondage. Jesus did not fight monsters. He broke what held people down with truth, compassion and a touch.
Peter gives the reason last. Presence comes before power, and the power flows out of the relationship.
The power of the Holy Spirit looks like Jesus going around doing good. If what is being called power does not look like that, it is something else.
Everything here comes back to Him. Romans 8:11 says the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in those who belong to Him. That is the power we are talking about. The same power that emptied a tomb in Jerusalem now lives in people who commute on the Long Island Expressway and worry about their kids.
We are not waiting for it. The Kingdom is here, the Spirit has been poured out, and we are participants in what God is doing, not spectators watching for a sign. The work in front of us is ordinary and holy at once. Tell the truth about Jesus. Pray for the sick. Use your gifts for someone other than yourself. Let the Spirit make you a gentler, braver person.
And if you feel like you have none of this, start where Jesus told us to start. In Luke 11:13 He says the Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. Ask. It is a gift, not a reward.
For related reading, see who the Holy Spirit is, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, how to walk in the Spirit, what the Kingdom of God is, whether there are prophets today and by His stripes we are healed. And if you are near Deer Park, come and visit us on a Sunday.
The power of the Holy Spirit is God's strength given to ordinary believers to witness to Jesus, heal, serve others with active gifts, and become people who love like Him, and it has never stopped being given.
Whether you need healing, courage to speak up, or simply want to know the Spirit more, send us a note and someone at Sound of Heaven will pray with you.
The power of the Holy Spirit is God's own strength at work in and through believers. In Acts 1:8 Jesus promised it with a purpose attached: you will receive power, and you will be my witnesses. Across the New Testament that power shows up as bold witness about Jesus, healing, spiritual gifts used for the good of others, and a changed character marked by love and self-control. It is not a feeling to chase or a performance to stage. It is God equipping ordinary people to do what Jesus did.
It does four main things. It gives courage to speak about Jesus, as Peter and John showed before the council in Acts 4. It brings healing and restoration, the Kingdom setting things right. It distributes gifts such as prophecy, tongues and words of knowledge for the common good, as 1 Corinthians 12 says. And it forms character. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 1:7 that the Spirit gives power, love and self-discipline, so the Spirit's power always makes a person more like Jesus, not just more impressive.
Look at what is happening rather than what you are feeling. Scripture knows the Spirit's power mainly by its effects: growing love, courage you did not used to have, gifts that build others up, and a life that points people to Jesus. Some days you will sense God strongly and many faithful days you will not. If you belong to Jesus, the Spirit lives in you, according to Romans 8. If you want more, Jesus said in Luke 11:13 that the Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.
Yes. At Sound of Heaven we believe every gift of the Spirit is active today, including healing, prophecy, tongues and miracles. Peter said the promise was for his hearers, their children and all who are far off. The Kingdom Jesus brought did not arrive with an expiry date. We also hold two things honestly. Plenty of claimed miracles are exaggerated, and when someone is not healed it is never a verdict on their faith. We pray for the sick expecting God to move, and we keep caring for people whatever happens.
No. In Acts 2 Peter quotes Joel's promise that the Spirit would be poured out on sons and daughters, young and old, servants included. The fivefold ministry gifts in Ephesians 4 are functions that equip the whole church, not a spiritual upper class that holds the power for everyone else. Most of the Spirit's work in Acts happens through unnamed believers in homes and on streets. If you follow Jesus, the same Spirit who worked through the apostles is at work in you.