Do You Have Power?

There is a version of faith that looks active but runs empty. You know the songs. You know the scriptures. You show up. And yet somewhere underneath the routine is a quiet awareness — a sense that something is operating in less than full capacity.

On May 17, 2026, Apostle John Varner brought the word at the Courts of Praise Sunday Service, building his message on Acts 1:8 with threads running through John 17, Acts 2, and Judges 1. The question he posed was not rhetorical. What have you been doing without the Holy Ghost?

“Your problem is not the devil. Your problem is that person you see in the mirror. Because you get that person tapped into God just right, the devil ain’t going to stay around very long.”

— Apostle John Varner  ·  May 17, 2026

You Are Sent. Not Raptured.

The church has spent decades developing a theology of exit — preparing to leave, looking for the door out. Apostle Varner named it directly. He referenced a book from the 1980s titled 88 Reasons the Lord’s Coming in ‘88. Wrong. And the impulse behind that prediction keeps reasserting itself in every generation.

Acts 1:8 does not say the Holy Spirit was given to help you exit the earth. It says He was given to make you a witness — in Jerusalem, Judaea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth. Those are directions outward, not upward. The power flows toward the world, not away from it.

“The power of the Holy Ghost is not the power to rapture us. He’s given us the power of the Holy Ghost to send us into the earth — to penetrate that where the darkness is, to go in there where people need help.”

— Apostle John Varner  ·  May 17, 2026

The Greek word translated “power” in Acts 1:8 is dunamis — the root of our English word “dynamite.” Apostle Varner was careful here. It is not just authority, though it includes authority. It is explosive capacity. The kind of power that does not just hold ground but breaks through.

The Truth That Unconceals

Jesus, in John 17, on the night of His betrayal, prayed for His disciples. The passage is sometimes called the High Priestly Prayer, and Apostle Varner made clear he believes this prayer is not expired — that Jesus is still interceding on the basis of what He prayed that night.

John 17:17 — “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” The Greek word for “truth” there is alētheia.

Alētheia does not primarily mean accurate information. It means unconcealment — the active unveiling of what has been hidden. When a verse opens up to you, when scripture stops being words on a page and becomes something alive and directive, that is not sentiment. That is unconcealment happening in real time. That is what Jesus prayed for. That is what sanctifies.

“There’s power in the truth that He gives you. There’s power whenever He unveils something to you.”

— Apostle John Varner  ·  May 17, 2026

Get Up and Ask

Apostle Varner turned to Judges 1:14–15 — not a passage most preachers reach for when teaching about the Holy Spirit. Caleb’s daughter alights from her donkey and asks her father for springs of water. She has been given land, but she knows land without water is incomplete. She gets up and asks.

The application was direct. God spoke to Apostle Varner through that moment: get up off your place of comfort and ask Me for something. The Father’s Day card illustration landed here — a card that opened to say “Give me, give me, give me.” And the response was not irritation. It was: get up, walk around, ask Me for something. I want to give you something.

The promise in Acts 2:39 is still open: “For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” The door to the Holy Spirit is hunger. You cannot manufacture hunger, but you can stop suppressing it.

Something to Say to Everyone

Apostle Varner told a story about stopping at a Cracker Barrel in Valdosta, Georgia on the way to the service. While praying over the meal, he received a vision — a woman, sitting on a porch, waiting. It was their waitress. He delivered the word: keep your faith and your joy operating. It is on the way.

She broke. Her son and daughter-in-law had been living with her in crisis for two years. They prayed right there at the table.

That is not a remarkable story because he had a vision in a restaurant. It is remarkable because he was available. He was paying attention. He had something to give because he was walking in what God had filled him with. The Spirit-filled believer always has something to say — because they have been given something to carry.

“I’ve been seeing what I can do now. I want to see what God can do. I want to see miracles. I want to see the supernatural. I want to see lives changed like they’ve never changed before.”

— Apostle John Varner  ·  May 17, 2026

The Mule at the Watering Trough

Apostle Varner used one more image: a farmer who offers water to a mule before a day of plowing. The mule won’t drink. After a half-day of hard work under the sun, the farmer offers water again. The mule drinks like a camel.

Sometimes the pressure you have been resisting is what God is using to build the thirst that will bring you to the trough. The watering trough is the Holy Spirit. He has been there all along.

That is what speaking in tongues provides. Not a spiritual credential. Not a club membership. An access point — to prayer that bypasses the limitations of your own understanding and connects directly with the Spirit of God. You can receive it by faith. The promise is yours.

“There’s something about being able to talk to God in a language that your brain can’t goof up. There’s something about talking to God in a language that the devil can’t get in there and mess up.”

— Apostle John Varner  ·  May 17, 2026

A Note for This Week

1. Ask God for the baptism of the Holy Spirit — or if you have it, press back into it. Set aside 15 minutes today to pray out loud, in whatever language God gives you. By faith. Don’t wait to feel “ready.”
2. Read Acts 1–2 this week. Pay attention to what the disciples were doing between the resurrection and Pentecost. Look for the posture — not the event.
3. Find one person this week you feel prompted to speak to. Not a sermon — one word. Follow the instinct. The Spirit will give you what to say.