Are You Plugged In?

Are You Plugged In?
Luke 9:1-2
Colossians 1:9-13
 
Electrical devices need electrical power to work; they need to be plugged in.  If we were to plug the hair dryer or electric razor that we used this morning into an outlet in some foreign countries we would run the risk of it burning up. I know from personal experience.  In some places you have to have an adapter or converter.  When I traveled to Germany a couple of years or so ago I didn’t know that. I plugged my shaver in and I went to shaving with it and the thing started getting hot.  I realized that the thing was about to melt, it was really hot! I found out I needed a converter in order to be plugged in.
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In our passage from the book of Luke we read that Jesus called the twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all devils and to cure diseases.

In order for those disciples to be able to go out, to cast out demons, and to heal the sick, they had to be plugged in.  So He called his disciples together and He gave them the power; the disciples were plugged into the power source.  Even today, in order for acts of healing and deliverance to happen for us we have to be plugged in.

Here Jesus is equipping these disciples.  Jesus is giving these disciples power and authority and He sent them out to preach the kingdom. 

As we see in Colossians Chapter 1 Paul is hooked up.  He says to the Colossians: I’m praying for you all; I’m praying that you’ll be “strengthened in all might according to His glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.”

If you’re hooked up you can suffer long. You can endure some things if you are plugged up.  Sometimes if we’re not plugged up the least little thing that someone says to us we will go off - we’ll lose it.  But if we’re plugged up we will try to diffuse the situation if there is something about to occur.  It’s because we have something greater within us than what’s in the world.  We have the Holy Spirit in us.  That’s what calms us, that’s what keeps us, that’s what sustains us - being plugged up into the power source.

You know if a person is not in Christ - if he is out of the will of Christ the question becomes who governs him? Who leads him?  Who guides him?   Talking about myself for a moment - at one time I wasn’t hooked up. I wasn’t hooked up to the power source.  There was a time that as it says here I needed to be delivered … from the power of darkness”.  In other words I was trapped; I was trapped by the power of darkness.  But thank God I was delivered by the converting power of Jesus Christ.

We can take those little adapters and go to Germany, France, Scotland or wherever and use them to plug up our hairdryers and our razors.  Spiritually, Christ is our converter; He’s our adapter. He’s the one that makes us, that shapes us, and molds us so that we are able to go into the kingdom of God.

Are you plugged in?  If you’re not, you can be.  You can be plugged in to the source, Jesus Christ.  All we have to do is surrender and give Him our hearts; give Him our life and then just watch what He does for us.
~J.T.