YOU NEED POWER

"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 1:8).

D.L. Moody was a shoe salesman until God moved him into a full-time preaching ministry, often in the streets of Chicago. There came a point in his journey with God that he realized he needed more in his life than what he was experiencing. "At the close of the Sabbath evening services I remember two holy women they would say to me, 'We have been praying for you.' I said, 'Why don't you pray for the people?' They answered, 'You need power.'

'I need power?' I said to myself. Why, I thought I had power. I had a large Sabbath school and the largest congregation in Chicago. I was in a sense satisfied. But then came these two godly women who prayed for me, and their earnest talk about "the anointing for special service" set me thinking. I asked them to come and talk with me, and we got down on our knees. They poured out their hearts, that I might receive the anointing of the Holy Ghost. And there came a great hunger into my soul. I knew not what it was. I began to cry as I never did before. The hunger increased. I really felt that I did not want to live any longer if I could not have this power for service. I kept on crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day, in the city of New York - Oh, what a day! I cannot describe it; I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to me. Paul had an experience that he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only say, God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand.

I went to preaching again. The sermons were no different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you would gave me all Glasgow.*

*Elmer Towns, Understanding the Deeper Life, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1984, pp. 224, 225