“Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside” (Luke 4:14).

If Jesus just performed miracles because He was God it would leave us with no confidence to believe for the miraculous ourselves. Paul explained, in Philippians, that Jesus “made himself nothing” (2:7). Literally, the original reads “He emptied Himself.” The NLT gives a good translation of the verse, “He gave up His divine privileges.”

Jesus couldn’t give up His divinity because that was part of His nature. But He did lay aside His divine prerogatives so He could model for us what a life lived by the power of the Holy Spirit would look like. He did no miracles before the power of the Holy Spirit came on Him at His baptism. He demonstrated the power that is available to every believer through the presence of the Holy Spirit.

When He displayed His power He didn’t do it as God, though He could have. He laid aside His divine privileges and lived out of dependence on prayer and the Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit available to us, too. Imagine what we could do if we lived in dependence on the Spirit’s power as Jesus did voluntarily! There is no limit to what we as believers could accomplish.