Joy in Power – The Presidential Prayer Team

So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. – John 16:22

Have you ever visited one of America’s major hydroelectric dams? One might assume that the water spilling over the top is the source of the power it generates, but that is not the case. Deep within the dam’s structure, turbines and generators receive and churn tons of water into electricity. They work out of public view. The energy these produce must go through various transformation processes before it finally reaches the outlets it powers. The Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy states, “Hydropower relies on the endless, constantly recharging system of the water cycle to produce electricity, using a fuel—water—that is not reduced or eliminated in the process.”

In John 16, fully recognizing what was ahead for Him, Jesus encouraged His disciples to remain constant in their trust in Him. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” He told them earlier, in chapter 14, when He promised that the Holy Spirit would be present with them after He was physically absent. “Abide in Me and in My Word,” Christ said in chapter 15, while warning them of trials and tribulations to come. In Chapter 16, Jesus again laid out the power and work of the Holy Spirit before telling them of the time when He would return, reassuring them of His power to overcome the world.

Much like the turbines in the hydroelectric dams, the Holy Spirit brings the power of Christ into your life through an unseen process that recharges and transforms you. As with electricity, you must stay “plugged in” to the Lord and His Word to appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit in your life. He is able to do “far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20). Pray for Christians in government and believers who are seeking public office this election year to receive and utilize God’s power.

Today’s Verse: John 16:22

So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Recommended for further reading: John 16:12-24

¹²“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. ¹⁴He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

¹⁶“A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” ¹⁷So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and, ‘because I am going to the Father’?” ¹⁸So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.” ¹⁹Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? ²⁰Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. ²¹When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. ²²So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. ²³In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. ²⁴Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.