The Imbalance of Power: Do We Really Believe?

We’ve gotten really, really good at talking.

In pulpits, podcasts, small groups, and social media, the church today sounds sharper than ever. Our doctrine is tight. We exegete the Greek, we quote the Reformers, we build airtight systematic theologies. Sermons are polished, books are bestsellers, conferences sell out. We can defend the faith with precision and passion. By almost every measurable standard of “knowing the Word,” we look strong.

But there’s a glaring imbalance.

Jesus didn’t just say, “Teach them to observe all that I have commanded you.” In the controversial closing verses of Mark’s Gospel, He also said this:

“And these signs will accompany those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (Mark 16:17-18)

That wasn’t a suggestion for the super-spiritual elite. It wasn’t reserved for the apostolic age or for “those guys back then.” The text says the signs will follow those who believe. Period.

So here’s the uncomfortable question we have to ask ourselves:

Do we really believe?

Because if the fruit of belief includes power—demonstrable, supernatural power—then something is seriously off in the modern Western church. We have excellent teaching. We have anemic power.

We talk about the miracles of the Bible like they’re museum pieces. We celebrate stories of healing from the 1970s or the Welsh Revival or some missionary in the Global South. We post old revival clips and say, “See? God still moves!” But when the camera is on us, in our Sunday services or midweek prayer meetings, the room often feels… ordinary. Safe. Predictable.

Worse, some of us have replaced the real thing with manipulation.

We know how to work a crowd—dim the lights, repeat the chorus, create an emotional atmosphere, call it “the presence of God.” We know how to get people to the altar with peer pressure and hype. We know how to spin a story so that a natural coincidence sounds like a miracle. But when the music stops and the lights come up, the cancer is still there, the depression didn’t lift, the demonic oppression didn’t break, and the person in the wheelchair is still sitting in it.

That’s not power. That’s performance.

And deep down, a lot of us know it.

We’ve convinced ourselves that solid doctrine is enough. That preaching the truth is the same as walking in the power of the truth. We quote 2 Timothy 3:16-17 about the sufficiency of Scripture and conveniently skip the fact that the same New Testament church that had the Scriptures also had the signs. The apostles didn’t just teach doctrine—they demonstrated the kingdom with power (1 Corinthians 2:4, 1 Thessalonians 1:5).

The early church wasn’t impressive because their theology was better. Their theology produced power because they actually believed what they taught. They expected God to show up the way He said He would.

So why don’t we?

Maybe we’ve slowly traded expectation for explanation.

Maybe we’ve made peace with a powerless gospel because it’s safer, more respectable, less likely to get us labeled “weird.”

Maybe we’ve studied the map so thoroughly that we forgot we were supposed to walk the actual road.

I’m not anti-doctrine. I love good theology. Bad doctrine has shipwrecked more people than bad miracles ever have. But doctrine without power is like a beautifully wrapped gift with nothing inside. It looks impressive on the shelf, but it doesn’t feed anybody.

The question Mark 16 forces us to face is brutally simple: Are the signs missing because the age of miracles is over… or because the age of belief is over?

If the verse really is for all believers, then the lack of signs in our churches isn’t a theological problem to explain away. It’s a spiritual problem to repent of.

We say we believe.

But do our churches look like it?

We can keep telling stories about what God used to do. Or we can start asking the harder question:

What would it look like if we actually believed He still does?

Not hype. Not manipulation. Not emotionalism dressed up as faith.

Real power. The kind that can’t be faked. The kind that makes the world stop and say, “This can only be God.”

Because if the signs truly follow those who believe… then maybe the real deception isn’t that we’re over-emphasizing miracles.

Maybe the real deception is that we’ve convinced ourselves we’re believing when the fruit says otherwise.

Lord, help us believe.

Not just in our heads.

But with our whole lives.