Is Bigger Better?

“They were all filled with the Holy Spirit . . .   ” Acts 4:23-31

When is big too big? It is now two years since the Burj Khalifa skyscraper was officially opened in Dubai. At a staggering 160 floors and towering a half mile above the desert it now stands as the world’s tallest building. To put it in perspective, this shimmering spike is easily twice the height of the Empire State Building (1931). Unfortunately, the once-booming desert metropolis that lies at its base has not kept up with the soaring confidence of the new building as the economy has collapsed. In just eighty years we have progressed to this dizzying height but only with this building did we jump a massive 1,000 feet to break the previous record set in 2004. The jump mimics the rapidity of change we are experiencing in our life-time and best observed in the recent technological advancements.

How different are the values of success when God takes them from the balances of human judgment and weighs them on the balance of heavenly scales. In that perspective there are some “big men” who will appear dwarfs and some insignificant men who will appear as spiritual giants. A person is no bigger than their prayer life or as the Scottish spiritual giant Robert Murray McCheyne once said, “What a man is on his knees before God, that he is – and nothing more”. A person must descend to greatness. On his knees he is tallest.

The swift and powerful movement of the Spirit of God as recorded in the book of Acts was not only initiated by prayer, but fed and nurtured by prayer. Prayer was the air they breathed and the link to their purity and power. Acts 4 records the first prayer meeting of the young Church in which we see such boldness, authority and power as they petitioned God. They prayed because they were filled, and they were filled because they prayed.

If we claim to be a people who are Spirit led and Spirit empowered it must be evidenced in a life of prayer or, whatever the endearing initial experience might have been, it will all fade and tarnish. The Scriptures and history prove that a movement of God will last as long as the Spirit of prayer that inspired it. Jesus said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer.” We build tall and strong when we build in prayer.