Christians have been trained to speak of love while avoiding any serious talk about power. In their minds, love is the pure thing, and power is the dangerous thing. They think they are honoring God by exalting love and keeping power at a distance, as if the two were in tension with each other. This has produced a distorted and unbiblical faith. It sounds noble to the religious and ignorant, but it is destructive. What results is a church that talks about love while refusing the means by which love fulfills its purpose.

Love without power is love that cannot act. It becomes the posture of one who wants to be thought of as compassionate, but who will not endure the responsibility of doing something real. The mind takes satisfaction in the image of being loving, while leaving the other person in the same misery as before. The sick remain sick, the poor remain poor, and the lost remain lost, but the Christian feels good for having expressed concern. Such love is not love at all. It is selfishness cloaked in religious language, a form of self-worship disguised as piety. It honors the self-image of the so-called loving person, while dishonoring God by denying what he has given to bring help and deliverance.

Not only does power belong to God, but God is power. Scripture does not present power as a tool God happens to use, but as his very being and identity. To be ashamed of power is to be ashamed of God himself. To mock power is to mock the one who is power. Those who say that power is unnecessary, or who dismiss it as a minor matter, do not appreciate the God they claim to worship. They create an idol that they call love, strip it of power, and then bow to it as if it were the true God.

The gospel itself shows that love and power are inseparable. It is not only the love of God to save, but the power of God to save. If the gospel were only love, it would be nothing more than divine sympathy, unable to rescue anyone from sin and death. The gospel is effectual because the love of God is the power of God in action. The cross is the decisive act by which God secured eternal redemption. The resurrection is the event by which God publicly displayed the triumph of his Son. To call this merely love without emphasizing power is to strip the gospel of its very essence.

In the Scriptures, the God who loves is the God who works wonders. His love is revealed in mighty works that accomplish his purpose. He creates the world by his power, saves his people by his power, prospers them by his power, and heals the sick by his power. To love God is to love him as he is, which means to love his power. God acts with power because he is power. Just as there is no God without power, there is no love without power.

Yet in many churches, miraculous power is treated as suspect. Some say it is a distraction from the true message, as if the miracles of Jesus were a distraction from his preaching. Others accuse those who expect God to heal or deliver of being carnal, as if the holiness of God and the power of God could be opposed to each other. This is more than ignorance, but blasphemy. It is to speak of God’s works as if they were the works of men, to suggest that his deeds resemble the corrupt motives of this world. Such people have learned to speak evil of the things they do not understand.

Miraculous power is not an accessory to the Christian life. It is an expression of the life of God himself. The Holy Spirit lives in the believer not as a principle or idea, but as almighty power. The early disciples turned the world upside down by the preaching of the word accompanied by signs and wonders. Paul confronted the Corinthians with the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that their faith would rest not on the wisdom of men but on the power of God. This is the only biblical pattern.

Powerless love is alien to the Scriptures and alien to God. It is a counterfeit that keeps its hands clean by refusing to do anything by faith. It poses as humility but is in truth a rejection of God’s nature. The love of God is the power of God in motion. It produces actual effects to benefit people.

Those who love God must love his power. They must desire it, honor it, and refuse to be ashamed of it. They must condemn the false teaching that treats power as inferior to love, or as if it were some optional part of the Christian life. If God is power, then the believer’s love for God will necessarily love his power. To divide the two is to tear apart the nature of God himself. The God who is love is the God who is power, and the God who is power is the God who is love.

If the church is to represent Christ faithfully, it must proclaim both equally. It must declare the love of God in terms that reveal the power of God, and the power of God in terms that reveal the love of God. This is not a matter of theological heritage or denominational style. It is a matter of truth. To offer one without the other is to offer something less than the gospel, less than the God of the Bible, and less than the hope he has given to the world.