Back in the day when the only thing cell phones did was make calls (Gasp! I know, right?), the kids were given a hand-me-down phone to play with after the owner upgraded to a newer model. The battery had been removed, and it was useless for any practical purpose, but they enjoyed playing make-believe with it. (Come to think of it, my brother and I also used to play telephone make-believe, except we used hairbrushes and bananas, because the one phone in the house was attached to the wall.)

Anyway, the point is that without battery power and a service plan, a mobile phone is worthless. It doesn’t matter how many cool apps you’ve downloaded or how tech-savvy you are; if you have no power, then it might as well be a rotary dial.

Our faith can look a lot like that dead cell phone example, can’t it? Some of us may have received hand-me-down religion from our parents or grandparents, but without a personal connection to the Power source, second-hand faith gets us nowhere. Others of us may have started off our faith-walk on a good foot, but somewhere along the way, our batteries have drained, and we’ve lost reception. Sometimes we hold the phone to our ear and pretend like everything is hunky-dory, but it’s just a façade – and we don’t want others to see through our make-believe.

Acts 1:8 promises that the Holy Spirit will lend his power when we walk with the Lord, but real life doesn’t have a Wi-Fi heads-up display to let us know how in tune we are with God. There is no handy-dandy battery icon to show when we need a spiritual recharge. It’s something that we need to do regularly, like getting in the habit of plugging in your phone before you go to bed each night. If we stay charged by reading God’s Word and having conversation with him in prayer, then when he calls us (pun intended), we’ll be in tune to listen.