Daily Devotions with Pastor John
Saturday, February 19, 2022

The Power of Powerlessness

I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are our in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit…

The Apostle John, Revelations 1:9, 10

John was exiled. He was isolated on Patmos, the notorious Roman penal-colony,  left, in the words of Thomas Torrance, “to rot and bleach upon the rocks.” He was removed from human help and solace. He had no access to the faceless bureaucracy that carried out the orders that defined his environment and the conditions of his life. His freedom had disappeared  and in his soul he felt his great loss – cut off from  his dear brothers and sisters.

Exile is the experience of powerlessness in the extreme. Like Daniel and the children of Israel who endured seventy years in exile, John felt on Patmos what they felt in Babylon (see Psalm 137:1-4). Rome was showing John who was in charge. Rome was giving John proof that they determined his destiny. Rome wanted John to know that they had the final word on his life, that the state’s decree set the limits within which he was permitted to exist. John was powerless.

As real as his feelings were; as unalterable as his circumstances were; as powerless as he was, he knew that these could not harm his relationship and communion with the God of all power. “I was in the Spirit” meant that John knew he was in touch with and a participant in all the energy of the Triune God. At the same time he was on Patmos he was in the Spirit. John was praying. He was communing with God. He was speaking and listening to the living God. He was in a prepared posture of receptivity before God. John was not powerless.

Prayer Points

• That God would grant us an ever clearer picture of our own powerlessness and an ever greater awareness of his almighty power.
• That during these days of focused prayer you and all the West Highland family will learn to trust the God who is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask of imagine
• That God would finally bring our “Covidian exile” to an end and pour out his saving power on our beloved country.