A Power Beyond Belief

The Continuing Work of the Holy Spirit in the 21st Century

By Andy Cook, Pastor, Shirley Hills Baptist Church

Kregel Publications, 2003

Chapter 1: The power of a ten-year-old President

It was an early morning in June, and the tourists were already out and about in Washington, D.C. A line formed at the Washington Monument, and the Smithsonian opened its doors to a small crowd of sightseers. Another handful of tourists took snapshots at the Lincoln Memorial, while a short distance away, a family traced a name on the Vietnam Memorial. On Pennsylvania Avenue, a few tourists gawked at the White House through the iron picket fence that surrounded the most famous dwelling in America.

Things didn’t stay sleepy for long. Sirens sounded in the distance then grew closer and closer. First, the motorcycle cops arrived right in front of those White House, swarming over the intersection. They officers halted traffic and pedestrians in all directions, and the tourists held their breath, hoping to see something exciting.

Then they saw the motorcade. It moved swiftly through each sealed-off intersection. Behind seven motorcycles, five black vehicles slid by, the darkened windows hiding the important passengers headed toward their important destination.

While the tourists wondered who was in the motorcade, the convoy of vehicles turned into the large park in front of the White House, where a group of soldiers stood at attention. The security guards were on full alert, eyes behind their dark glasses darting from tourist to tourist. The motorcade turned toward the park, and disappeared from view.

In a flash it was over, but already the tourists playfully punched each other’s arms and bragged of the snapshots inside their cameras. No doubt the folks back home would hear plenty about the day when they caught a glimpse of what might have been the president’s motorcade.

Most, however, had no idea that President George W. Bush was in Europe. He couldn’t have been in the motorcade. And if they had witnessed the motorcade unloading, they would’ve seen something no one has ever seen before or will likely ever see again. When the motorcade stopped, aides scrambled out of the auxiliary cars. Members of the “First Family” piled out of the vehicles, and they looked nothing like famous Texans. In fact, they were Georgians.

And when the most important passenger stepped out of the car, the military guards at the door had to look slightly down in order to salute him. The “president” was only ten years old.

It was June of 2001, and this story really happened.

Daniel Moretz had been born with a dysfunctional heart, and had averaged more than one serious operation a year for his first eight years of life. At the age of eight, weighing only thirty-two pounds, Daniel had survived a heart transplant.

As Daniel recovered from the transplant, he met some representatives of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

“What would be your wish, Daniel?” asked the people who loved making dreams come true.

“I’d like to be President,” said the little boy.

Daniel’s parents smiled at the request. The Make-A-Wish representatives chuckled nervously. The entire room waited for Daniel to be a little clearer with his dream.

“Do you mean,” asked one of the “Wish Fairies,” “that you’d like to meet the President?”

“No,” said the little boy who’d been born with a bad heart. “I want to be the President.”

And with that, the Make-A-Wish folks left the room, and everyone assumed that Daniel’s dream left with them. There was simply no way Daniel’s dream could become reality. In its first twenty years, the foundation had made more than eighty thousand wishes come true for seriously ill children. But this wish seemed impossible. It simply couldn’t be done.

But a few months later, a clothing store in Atlanta called the Moretz family. Their tailor had orders to make for Daniel a custom-made, presidential-blue suit, complete with a red power tie. Next to arrive were the plane reservations for Washington, D.C. The entire family was invited, and with his new heart, Daniel was up for the journey. At age ten, he was stronger and healthier than he’d been before the transplant.

It must have seemed like a dream, checking into the presidential suite of the historic Willard Intercontinental Hotel and touring Washington, D.C. for a day. Daniel and his family saw all the usual sights and had a private visit to the Capitol. Daniel even sat in the Speaker’s chair in the House of Representatives, and he, his brother Lee, and sister Morgan got to wander around the floor of the Senate.

That was all pretty exciting, but Make-A-Wish had given no details about how they planned to make Daniel’s wish come true. The family speculated that, at best, Daniel would get an insider’s look at the White House. Perhaps an aide would take them to some behind-the-scenes places to make the boy feel special, not exactly like being the president, but good, nonetheless.

Then Tuesday evening something spine-tingling happened. Daniel and his family were standing outside the White House, lingering beyond the fence that separated the tourists from the First Family. Suddenly, several members of the security force surrounded the Moretzes.

A stern-looking agent on a bicycle rode directly toward the group. He pulled up next to Daniel and his eyes widened in surprise.

“Hey, wait a minute,” the agent said. “Aren’t you Daniel Moretz? You are, aren’t you?!”

Daniel nodded, wondering how the agent could have known his name.

“You know,” said the agent, “since you’re going to be president tomorrow, I guess you need to go see your house.”

After murmuring a series of quick commands into a hand-held radio, the agent escorted Daniel’s family inside the iron fence, and then inside the White House itself. Over the next two hours, unthinkable things happened. Daniel bowled on the presidential bowling alley, practiced a speech from the president’s podium in the White House Press Room, and toured the White House kitchen. He saw the President’s personal movie theater, the jogging track, and had a rare view of the Oval Office from the Rose Garden. Before it was over, Daniel even played with a highly trained K-9 member of the president’s security force.

Back at the hotel, Daniel went fast to sleep with memories that few children will ever have. David and Julie Moretz, however, slept very poorly that night. Their previous best guess at what might have been the highlight of the trip—an insider’s view of the White House—had already happened. But what had the agent said?

“. . . since you’re going to be President tomorrow . . . ?”

Wednesday dawned with a well-rested boy and the arrival of security.

A special agent, wearing a dark-suit, said to Daniel’s mother, “Ma’am,” “I’ll be taking care of Daniel now.” The agents spine remained ram-rod straight as he took Daniel by the hand.

The ten-year-old, red-headed president was on his way.

The motorcade swept through intersection after intersection, going from one destination to another. Just beyond all those wide-eyed tourists on Pennsylvania Avenue, the first stop was at the Ellipse, a spacious expanse of ground within sight of the White House. Standing alongside an army brigadier general, Daniel reviewed the troops and a color guard that carried flags from all fifty states. The troops were actually practicing for an event later that day, but the ten-year-old assumed it was all for him, especially when a member of the color guard dipped the Georgia flag in Daniel’s honor. As an ideal way to start the day, President Moretz presented medals to the general before leaving the park.

From there, the smallest president in U.S. history went to the J. Edgar Hoover building for a meeting with FBI officials. In the lobby, the family noticed two prominent, framed photographs. One was of Vice President Dick Cheney. The other was of President Daniel Moretz.

The motorcade hustled the family off to the Lincoln Memorial, but before their tour began there, a military aide rushed to Daniel’s side, just as his car came to a halt.

“Mr. President,” said the woman, carrying an important-looking briefcase. “There’s a situation, and we need you at the Pentagon.”

The way she’d said “situation” indicated there was no time to waste, so the entourage was off. Leaving a growing crowd of curious spectators, the motorcade whisked through the intersections, and more tourists took blurred photos of the limousine’s dark-windows as the cars whizzed past.

At the Pentagon, Daniel stepped quickly past security, taking time to acknowledge the cheering supporters who stepped out of their offices to see the boy president. Some of them were waving signs supporting an early re-election campaign for President Moretz.

Inside a briefing room, Pentagon officials presented video footage of the “crisis,” laid out the options, and listened as President Moretz ordered the ground troops to take over. The two-star general who had lobbied for that particular action broke into a wide grin. In a moment, Daniel handed him a new medal.

A “high-level” meeting at the U.S. Treasury Department followed, the first such meeting in the building to ever offer milk and cookies as refreshments. The crowds outside the building were starting to grow, and Daniel was showered with presidential applause. Some gave him flowers. The president basked in the attention, waving, smiling, and shaking hands as fast as he could.

But there was more for the ten-year-old president to do. He walked into the Office of Personnel Management to the strains of “Hail to the Chief.” He later cut a ribbon to open a new Bureau of Customs facility. He reverently laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. He took a presidential power nap during a helicopter tour of Washington. He delivered a speech to enthusiastic supporters at the Watergate complex. He walked down a red carpet and stood with serious-looking agents by his side as he waved to the crowds.

Eventually, the one-day First Family made it back to their hotel, where President Moretz made one more speech on the importance of finding more organ donors, leaving the crowd of supporters cheering. Some of them were wiping away the tears, for few people can deliver an impassioned call for organ donation like a little boy who knows its importance.

When the sun set on the Potomac River that memorable Wednesday, Daniel’s day as President was finally over. An eight-hour flight delay at the airport two days later left him longing for a ride in Air Force One, but if the “Moretz for President” campaign picks up, perhaps he’ll one day get to fly on that big jet.

Take stock of this story. No matter how much a child might wish to be president, such a thing could never happen without hundreds of people going to tremendous trouble to make it so. On his own power, Daniel’s impossible dream never would have come true, no matter how badly he wished it. Without an outside source of help, without a source of power not his own, Daniel never could have been president at ten, eleven, twelve, or even fifty-two. At any age, you need lots of help to be president. If you’re ten years old, it takes a miracle.

And yet it happened. The impossible became possible, and then a reality. The family has photographs to prove it! Daniel only had to ask for the miracle, and then believe that it could happen.

Could something like that happen to you? You probably don’t want to be president for a day. Maybe you’d like a miracle of a different sort—like the power to get through today or tomorrow. Maybe you’d like to have the power of purpose, a reason to live, a reason to do whatever it is that you’re born to do. Maybe you need a power far beyond yourself to make a marriage work, to make ends meet, or to get through a tough year of school. Maybe you’ve got a dream hidden somewhere in your heart, and you’d love to have the power to make a miracle become reality.

Jesus said you could have that kind of power. No kidding.

On a day almost two thousand years ago, as Jesus stood on this side of the Cross, on the very alive side of the Resurrection, he said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you”(Acts 1:8). The book of Acts records that, over the next handful of years, some Daniel Moretz-like moments happened. The impossible became historical events, people were part of things they didn’t believe were possible—except they had lived them.

Although the book of Acts itself comes to an end, the story of Act has no ending. After the last words of the last passage, there’s no signature sign-off from Luke, the investigative reporter who compiled the stories, or from Paul, the key character in the last half of the book. The ending makes you think that the book of Acts has a sequel, chapters that will extend its pages, past the first century, past the second and the third and the fourth centuries, right up to this moment.

God wants you to have a “power-full” way of living.

Those first Christians living in the pages of Acts have a message for us: what happened in the first century can happen in ours. The power that so profoundly changed those early Christians is still available today. It’s a power that would make the electric companies humble. It’s power that would make a stockpile of missiles look puny. It’s a power that is God-given, God-directed, and God-sized. It’s a power beyond belief, and it’s a power you can have.

The way Daniel Moretz woke up to a dream-come-true, you can wake up to a powerful new way of living. If you’ve never known a life like this, you can soon tap into the only unlimited, unhindered, unbelievable power the world has ever known. Maybe you’ve already discovered the power, but you’d like to find even more power, or find more ways to use it. Perhaps your spiritual tank is full, but you’d like your tank topped off, made even more full. That’s God’s very plan—to make us “power-full”!

The power is still there for the receiving. God’s miracle-making ability has no expiration date. If you’d like the power, come to the book of Acts with open arms and unrealistic expectations, and watch God do amazing new things in your life.

There’s a lot to cover in the pages that follow, a world of powerful lessons. None of is more basic, however, than this one. Daniel Moretz had a wonderful day, being president, but he never would have known that day, never known that dream, never known the power of a miracle come true but for one thing—Daniel had a new heart.

Without a new heart, Daniel would have died; he couldn’t have withstood the walk to a presidential podium, couldn’t have thought quickly through an “international crisis,” or stood at attention at Arlington. Without a new heart, Daniel would have been without hope.

And Daniel knows another, more intimately truth. In order for Daniel to have a new heart, someone else had to die. During his speeches, the ten-year-old president said he never thinks of the joy that his new heart brought his family without thinking of the sadness that belongs to another family. No, the joy Daniel knows today, and the power he feels, is not without cost; Daniel’s heart came at the expense of another child’s life.

And the truth is, without a new spiritual heart from Jesus, you’ll never know the power he promises. The book of Acts holds the promise of a power beyond belief, from which miracles are still to be had. The promise, however, is only for those who’ve become committed followers of Christ. Don’t come to this book with any expectations—unless you’ve got that new heart.

Jesus didn’t promise the power of the Holy Spirit until the Cross was behind him. Like the donor of a physical heart, Jesus had to give up his life before new spiritual hearts would be available.

And the people in the book of Acts didn’t see the miracles until they accepted the new heart that Jesus offered. Only then did they see the power. Only then did they have a new way to walk, a new way to see life, a new energy to live with a purpose. To take the heart that Jesus offered, those early Christians had thrown away their desires, their pasts, their guilt, and taken on a new way of living. They knelt at the cross and believed that the man who died there—who conquered death there—was a God-sent Savior, even God himself. They believed that what happened there was the very giving of God’s heart to them. They realized the cost of that gift was beyond measure.

Those early followers accepted the gift with grateful spirits. And in a few days, the power that Jesus had promised came upon them in a spectacular and unexpected way. For the rest of their lives, they continued to discover new aspects of the power. They found purpose, peace, and an ability to change their world.

Some twenty centuries have passed since that time, and people in every century have discovered the same kind of power. They keep discovering it, even until today, and people with that power are still changing the world. I don’t know about you, but I want all of the power possible.

God arranged for the stories of those first few years to be in our hands so we can learn the lessons, apply them, and enjoy the power. But to begin the stories in Acts, I ask you to take a seat in an imaginary movie theater. The script, however, doesn’t start in the book of Acts but in the Old Testament. What happens in our movie gives a new appreciation of the power, for it is a power like none other.

If you’re ready, sit back and relax. The theater lights are already dimming …