Keeping Connected to the Power

Spiritual power comes through experiencing God’s presence, and God’s presence is found in sustained prayer.
—Jim Cymbala

One Sunday in our church services, a choir member—a former drug addict who was HIV positive—told how she came to Christ. She described in raw detail the horrors of her former life. A street person named David stood in the back, listening closely.

The meeting ended, and I was exhausted. After giving and giving, I had just started to unwind when I saw David coming my way.

I’m so tired, I thought. Now this guy’s going to hit me up for money.

When David got close, the smell took my breath away—a mixture of urine, sweat, garbage, and alcohol. After a few words, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a couple of dollars for him. I’m sure my posture communicated, Here’s some money. Now get out of here.

David looked at me intently, put his finger in my face, and said, “Look, I don’t want your money. I’m going to die out there. I want the Jesus this girl talked about.”

I paused, then looked up, closed my eyes, and said, “God, forgive me.” For a few moments, I stood with my eyes closed, feeling soiled and cheap. Then a change came over me. I began to feel his hurt, to see him as someone Christ had brought into the church for that moment.

I spread out my arms, and we embraced. Holding his head to my chest, I talked to him about his life and about Christ. But they weren’t just words. I felt them. I loved him. That smell—I don’t know how to explain it—it had almost made me sick before, but it became beautiful to me. I reveled in what had been repulsive.

I felt for him what Paul felt for the Thessalonians: “We were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us” (1 Thess. 2:7-8 niv). God put that kind of love in me.

The secret to Paul’s ministry was what I felt that night. That divine love became supernatural power.

The minute my attitude changed, David knew it. He responded, and the gospel got through to David that night.

No matter where you serve or what challenges you face, no one can sustain a life-giving ministry without spiritual power. But how do we define spiritual power? What is it like to experience it? Can we do anything to seek more of God’s power?

Baptism of love

When I think of spiritual power, I often think of a baptism of love. My wife and I have found that without the new baptisms of compassion and love God gives us, we would leave New York City and all its problems in a second.

Paul urged the Ephesians to be filled constantly with the Spirit. I have no desire to argue doctrinally about what that means; all I know is, if God doesn’t do that for me, I stop caring. Often, when I hear about one more child molestation case, I want to say, “I don’t want to deal with this anymore.” Left to Jim Cymbala, I am not capable of continuing to care.

We deal with stuff that is so overwhelming. A guy said to me, “Pastor, what do I do? I killed this guy five months ago, and I don’t know if the cops are looking for me or not.”

“Killed a guy! What do you mean you killed a guy?”

“I shot him. You know, I needed money—the crack thing.”

Hear enough of those stories, and you build a wall. You don’t want to take the pain home because it will affect your wife and your children, but if you don’t feel the pain, your ministry becomes mechanical.

When I’m looking at people through God’s eyes and I’m feeling how Christ feels, then spiritual power can flow through me to them.

At the end of one church service, a fifty-year-old, three-decade alcoholic named Victor walked forward to the altar area. I knew him fairly well. He lived in the parks.

His hair was matted; he’d been drinking. He had been in a fight with a cop and gotten hurt. The gauze on his hand was so filthy he would have been better off with none.

It was the end of our third Sunday service, and I was seated on the platform. I didn’t have the energy to get up to go to him, so I waved for him to come and sit beside me. As we were talking, I noticed a bulge in his ankle. I said, “Victor, what in the world …”

He pulled his pants leg higher, and his calf was so hideous I couldn’t look at it. It was like elephantiasis.

“You’re going to die,” I said. “You’re going to die, Victor. You’re going to die.”

Victor just nodded.

I didn’t know what to do. So I held his hand and silently prayed, God, what do I do? I don’t even know how to pray. As I waited on God, I began to experience what Paul described: “I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Gal. 4:19 niv).

I began to weep, and then so did Victor. After we sat holding hands and weeping for several minutes, I referred him to one of my associates. I never said a word in prayer.

But minutes later Victor committed his life to Christ, and he has never been the same. Somehow the truth we had told him so many times before about who Jesus was and what God could do finally got through. For the past three years, he has worked for the church in the maintenance department.

Power surge

When I came to Brooklyn Tabernacle at age twenty-eight, the church numbered under twenty people. The situation at first was so depressing, I didn’t want to come to services, and I was in charge!

We struggled to make ends meet. The first Sunday offering was $85. I made $3,800 my first year here and $5,200 the second. I had a second job, and my wife had to find work.

After two years I got a cough in my chest I couldn’t shake. For weeks I was spitting up phlegm, unable to go to a doctor because we didn’t have money or health insurance. Finally I went to my in-laws’ home in Florida to see if the sun and some rest would help me.

One day, sitting in a fishing boat, I prayed, “Lord, one book says buses are the key to building a church. Another book says cell groups meeting in homes is the key. Another, multiple elder-ship. Another, releasing people from demons.

“Lord, what do I do? I’m in New York City with people dying all around me. You couldn’t have put Carol and me here to do nothing. But God, how can we get their attention? How can we get conviction of sin?”

Then God spoke to me in the closest thing to an audible voice I’ve ever experienced. The Lord told me if my wife and I would lead the people to pray and to wait on him, he would take care of every sermon I needed to preach (which I was very insecure about), he would supply all the money we needed, both personally and as a church, and no building we used would be large enough to contain all the people he would send in.

When I returned to New York, I told the congregation, “The barometer of our church is now going to be the prayer meeting. The key to our future as a church will be our calling on God to release his miraculous power among us.”

We need continual outpourings of the Spirit. Jesus promises, “How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13 niv).

When God does pour out his Spirit, expect for him to also save souls. Acts 11:21 (niv) says that when a group of Christians went to Antioch and preached the gospel, “The Lord’s hand was with them.” What was the sign that the Lord’s hand was with them? It says “a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.” That’s what we want to pray for.

At that time our prayer meeting had maybe fifteen people attending. In that weekly meeting, we began to wait on the Lord, and God gave us the gift of prayer. Worship and praise took hold. We saw that in direct proportion to the liberty God gave us in prayer, things happened: unsaved loved ones started getting converted. Other people came in—we didn’t know from where.

Every Sunday since that day eighteen years ago, we have announced that on Tuesday evening the doors open for our most important service, the one we look forward to most, the prayer meeting.

Spiritual power comes through experiencing God’s presence, and God’s presence is found in sustained prayer.

Arrow to the heart

One misunderstanding about spiritual power is that grace comes to people primarily through the sermon or through understanding sound doctrine.

I talk to pastor after pastor who is sound in doctrine and teaches it well but who admits something is missing. Their churches are plagued by rampant divorce or young people slipping off into a worldly life style.

The spiritual power the church needs is not released primarily through the sermon but by coming to “the throne of grace” in prayer. Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (niv). The sermon is supposed to be an arrow that directs the heart to God so he can minister fresh strength at the throne of grace.

I was at a meeting where the preacher gave an outstanding message. I could tell God had dealt with him through this passage. When he finished his sermon, the congregation applauded, and it was quickly announced that a special luncheon would immediately begin in another room.

What! I thought. We’re leaving? After that sermon we’re going to go out and have a meal?

I was thinking, I would almost jump off this balcony in order to have somebody pray for me. Let me call out to God. Let me ask God to forgive me for what I’ve been convicted of. Let me get to the throne of grace.

We truly lift up Jesus when our preaching leads people to call out to Jesus, when we point them to prayer and his personal dealing with their souls.

How can you have a New Testament meeting without a time for prayer after the sermon? Making the sermon the centerpiece of a service doesn’t seem to fit with Jesus’ words in Matthew 21:13: “My house will be called a house of prayer” (niv). R. A. Torrey, former president of Moody Bible Institute, wrote that the Word of God alone will not break a self-righteous, proud person. You have to get him or her into the presence of God.

Too many church services have become a lecture series. The Christian church was born not in a clever sermon but in a prayer meeting. The difference between a lecture and a sermon is that the sermon calls for response, and the response must include prayer.

Irresistible force

Until age sixteen, my oldest daughter was a model child. But then she got away from the Lord and became involved with a godless young man. She eventually moved out of our house and later became pregnant.

We went through a dark tunnel for two and a half years. While wonderful things were happening at the church—we were renting Radio City Music Hall for large outreaches and starting other churches, and many were coming to Christ—no one knew I was hanging by a thread. I often cried from the minute I left my house till I got to the church door, thinking, God, how can I get through three meetings today? My daughter …

But I didn’t want to make my need the focus. People are coming to the church because of their needs. Many live in ghettos, in violent, non-Christian homes.

During those years when Chrissy was away, the verse “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9 niv) became real to me, though I was weak emotionally.

My wife went through an especially dark time. The enemy attacked her with the thought, So you’re going to stay in New York City and influence a lot of people? Fine, but I’ll have all your children. I’ve got one, and now I’m coming for the other two.

Carol told me, “I can’t take this sitting down. You can leave the church with me or stay, but I’m taking my other two kids. I’ve got to get out of this environment. I’m going to save our children. You can’t do this to them.”

I half agreed. But then I thought, If I move, not knowing for certain that it’s God’s will, what will my next move be? If you violate God’s will, where does that end?

Carol’s dad, a retired pastor, counseled her to stay: “Carol, it doesn’t matter where you go. It won’t change Chrissy.” Somehow God held us there and overruled our weakness.

During those days, whenever the phone rang, my stomach tensed. I didn’t approach the situation right with Carol most of the time, which made it worse. Many Sunday mornings I woke up feeling I couldn’t go to church.

It’s scary how many times while driving to the church I thought, I’m making a U-turn, and I’m not coming back. I can’t do this anymore.

But when I got into the church building, a peace would hold me, and I could get through the day. Then Carol had to have a hysterectomy. There in the hospital at her lowest moment, God ministered to her, and she wrote a song called, “He’s Been Faithful,” which of all her songs has had the greatest impact on people.

That was a turning point for her.

After Chrissy had been away for two years, I again spent some time in Florida. I said to God, “I’ve been battling, crying, screaming, arguing, and maneuvering with Chrissy. No more arguing, no more talking. It’s you and me. I’m just going to intercede for my daughter.”

I told Carol to stay in touch with our daughter, because I was no longer going to talk to Chrissy; I would only pray.

I stayed in Florida until God brought me to a new realm of faith. When I returned to New York I stopped reacting as before to the discouraging things Chrissy did. I found I could praise God even though the news from her was getting worse. It wasn’t positive thinking; it was faith.

Four months later, in February, we were in our Tuesday night prayer meeting (the choir and the church leadership now knew about Chrissy), when an usher passed a note to me. It was from a young woman in the church whom I felt was spiritual: “Pastor Cymbala, I feel deeply impressed that we are to stop the meeting and pray for your daughter.”

Lord, is this really you? I prayed within myself. I don’t want to make myself the focus.

At that moment Chrissy was at a friend’s home somewhere in Brooklyn with her baby.

I interrupted the meeting and had everyone stand. “My daughter thinks up is down, white is black, and black is white,” I said. “Someone has sent me a note saying that we are to pray for her, and I take this as being from the Lord.”

Some of the leaders of the church joined me, and the church began to pray. The room soon felt like the labor room in a hospital. The people called out to God with incredible intensity.

When I got home later, I said to my wife, “It’s over.”

“What’s over?” Carol said.

“It’s over with Chrissy,” I replied. “When we went to the throne of grace, something happened in the heavenly places.”

Thirty-six hours later, I was standing in the bathroom shaving. My wife burst into the room. “Chrissy’s here,” she said. “You’d better go downstairs.”

“I don’t know …” I said, having intentionally kept my distance from Chrissy for four months.

“Trust me. Go downstairs,” my wife replied.

I wiped off the shaving cream. I walked to the kitchen, and there was my daughter, nineteen years old, on her knees, weeping. She grabbed my leg and said, “Daddy, I’ve sinned against God. I’ve sinned against you. I’ve sinned against myself. Daddy, who was praying on Tuesday night?”

“What do you mean? What happened?” I said.

“I was sleeping,” she said. “God woke me up in the middle of the night, and he showed me I was heading toward this pit, this chasm, and Daddy, I got so afraid. I saw myself for what I am. But then God showed me he hadn’t given up on me.”

I looked at my daughter and saw the face of the daughter we raised. Not the hardened face of the last few years. So Chrissy and our granddaughter moved back into our home.

That was several years ago. Today she’s directing the music program at a Bible school and was married this past year to a man from our church.

If a church sincerely calls out to God week after week, “God, come and help us,” is it possible, is it feasible, that God will ignore that plea? I don’t think so. He’s drawn by that. His ear is always open to our cry.

Our prayers are an irresistible force. I’m not what I ought to be, our church isn’t all it should be, but there’s something about calling on God that changes everything.