Steve Chalke talks about how that whenever two people love one another, there is always one party who loves more than the other and that the one who loves less (if you can quantify love) actually ends up having more power than the one who loves more. By loving deeply and kindly and sacrificially you may put the person that you love in a position to have more power than you do.
I was thinking about this and wholeheartedly agree but thought to myself that the person who loves more still needs to have power to accomplish what we've been given to do on the planet and therefore where does that power come from. If you love less, you don't have power but the power for the person who gives up the power still needs a source of strength and influence instead of just being a doormat or a scapegoat. This is where the Holy Spirit comes in and it seems can only come in when we are weak and powerless because we have given up our rights to have power through loving those with whom we don't see a reciprocation of love. The lack of power as a result of love enables the Holy Spirit to rush in and fill the void and empower us.
If we seek power from others by not being vulnerable, not giving in and not loving then the power we have is legitimate power but it is our own and we got it through sin and selfishness. We still have strength and power to hand out but the use of it is actually to give it up in order to love others at times and therefore its use isn't only a direct show of power but also the ability to empty oneself of the power that we have a right to use to protect ourselves thereby allowing the Holy Spirit to move in through our own emptying in. The Holy Spirit couldn't come to earth until Christ left - when his presence and power left the earth - the Spirit came and empowered the disciples for what - to love through preaching, teaching, sacrificing, dying, etc... but not through violence.
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