Power in a Name
Pastoral | March 06, 2025 | By: Ethan Clark
One of the easiest conversions to the faith I’ve ever experienced was with a man named Gift. I met him walking through the Mukuni Market in Zambia as he was making hand-crafted miniature giraffes, one of which he tried to sell me. I was three months into an 11-month adventure with Jesus around the world with the goal of spreading the gospel, which gave me the nudge I needed to share with Gift. Within a few minutes of admiring his handiwork, I found myself sharing why we were in Livingstone, Zambia, not as tourists, but missionaries for King Jesus. He listened as I explained the gospel, he nodded; I asked if he wanted to receive Christ, and he prayed a prayer of salvation.
Then came the real test. He asked me and my ragtag team of 20-somethings to come to his village to pray for his sister who was ill. Apparently, believing in a God who could rise from the dead meant he had no issue believing that the same God had the power to heal.
The next day, we packed into a taxi and picked up Gift from the market. He directed us to his little village, a group of mud huts with square holes for windows and traditional peaked thatch roofs for cover.
I will never forget the look on his sister’s face. I spoke to her, but her responses were distant and delayed. The way she carried herself was more robotic than human. She didn’t really look at me, but more so through me. Our previously cheerful and faith-filled team experienced a weight we couldn’t quite articulate. Gift then informed us that his sister’s sickness wasn’t physical but spiritual.
She didn’t really look at me, but more so through me.
Nights before, she had been the unwitting victim of witchcraft through an open window. In a moment, we knew this wasn’t a confrontation with an ailment but the Adversary. So, I began to pray. You know—the kind of super spiritual and passionate type of prayer that casts out demons. I opened my eyes, nothing changed. I turned it over to the next teammate, but one by one, our voracity and hope dwindled with each amen.
Finally, being the 24-year-old leader I was, I thought I would pray one more time. Surely God would bring healing; surely He would respond to our cry. My last amen was one of dejected defeat. We rode silently back from the village.
That day, unlike any other, made me confront one question: What had I done wrong? Why weren’t our prayers effective? What had I missed? Where was the power?
What had I done wrong? Why weren’t our prayers effective?
I think most of us do not struggle in our faith because we fail to believe in God; we struggle in our faith because we, unlike Paul, fail to see the “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Cor. 2:4). You see, we don’t have a faith problem, we have a power problem.
We read of a type of power that parts the Red Sea, brings down the walls of Jericho, changes the hearts of kings, delivers from the mouths of lions, restores sight to the blind, heals the sick, gives hope to the broken, and brings life from death. But those acts, those events, to us are inaccessible history, and we have sophisticated responses if anyone tells us otherwise. “God did that then to affirm the apostles, to fulfill prophecies, to announce the coming King, to give us something to look back on.”
Our experiences agree with this reality. We’ve prayed that God would save our marriage, that the wayward child would return, that the incurable cancer would go into remission, for the job that would provide for us, for the loved one mired in addiction, against depression, joylessness, or a lack of peace and hope. We found no answer.
So, we accept a fate and existence in Christ that was never God’s intention. We approach His throne dressed as poor impotent paupers knowing He is able, but believing He is unwilling or at best stingy with His dispensation of power. Maybe one day, just once, He will say yes.
Eventually, after coming in poverty again and again, we stop looking up for divine aid and look around for a divine counterfeit. We scheme, labor, and limit God’s limitless capacity—all because we have tried, we’ve prayed, and we are exhausted. Separation is better than divorce, medicating preferable to suffering, accepting a diagnosis better than hoping for healing, dealing with anxiety easier than praying for peace.
Eventually, we stop looking up for divine aid and look around for a divine counterfeit.
But what if we have placed too much on ourselves? What if in learning to settle for earthly solutions to divine problems we’ve forgotten to approach boldly the throne of grace as the redeemed, reconciled, chosen, holy, and righteous ones we are? What if in focusing and worrying and failing to see that we are enough, we have failed to see that HE IS ENOUGH.
In praying that the Spirit might reveal to us the “immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe” (Eph. 1:19-20), Paul reminds us of what we forget. We forget that it is not our power but HIS. That the source and seat of our power remains on the throne, but He stepped down from the throne to come join us in the dust. There is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved. There is no other name greater than HIS name. There is only one Name by which every knee will bow and tongue confess. His name is JESUS.
There is more power in that mighty name than any other. Hear the witness of early 20th century British Evangelist Smith Wigglesworth in his experience with Christ’s name.
“Six people went into the house of a sick man to pray for him. He was an Episcopalian vicar, and lay in his bed utterly helpless, without even strength to help himself. He had read a little tract about healing and had heard about people praying for the sick, and sent for these friends who, he thought, could pray the prayer of faith. He was anointed according to James 5:14, but because he had no immediate manifestation of healing, he wept bitterly. The six people walked out of the room, somewhat crestfallen to see the man lying there in an unchanged condition. When they were outside, one of the six said, ‘There is one thing we might have done. I wish you would all go back with me and try it.’ They went back and all got together in a group. This brother said, ‘Let us whisper the name of Jesus.’ At first when they whispered this worthy name nothing seemed to happen. But as they continued to whisper, ‘Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!’ the power began to fall. As they saw that God was beginning to work, their faith and joy increased; and they whispered the name louder and louder. As they did so the man arose from his bed and dressed himself. The secret was just thus: those six people had gotten their eyes off the sick man, and they were just taken up with the Lord Jesus Himself, and their faith grasped the power that there is in His name. O, if people would only appreciate the power that there is in this name, there is no telling what would happen.”
I wish I had understood this little “secret” back in Zambia. I wish I had trusted in the power and strength not of myself, but of Christ. If I could only go back to that hut and simply whisper the worthy name of Jesus, might something have changed? Either way, I will always trust in the Name.
Don’t stop proclaiming and calling on His name. Even a whisper has the power to save.
Ethan Clark
Central Young Adult & Singles Pastor
If you’d like to know more about what it means to know Jesus personally and trust in His name, How to Know Jesus may be helpful to you, and our pastors are always here to answer any questions you may have.
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