Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. 3 And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread” . . . 9 Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here . . . 13 Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time. 14 Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit . . .” Luke 4:1-3, 9, 13-14 NKJV

The principle of the above text is: just like Jesus, we are to go into the wilderness of our life’s circumstances and face our temptations being full of the Spirit, and return from the temptation in the power of the Spirit. If we come away from our temptation feeling powerless and weak, questioning God or ourselves, we are leaking power.

We receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon us and we become witnesses of Christ (Acts 1:8). When this power leaks, we are ineffective, hit and miss, weak and slowed down like a car engine with a vacuum leak. We can further know that our power is leaking when we try to satisfy the challenge of the Tempter. If Jesus couldn’t satisfy him, neither can we.  When we start explaining, we are essentially saying, “I have no right to be blessed” unless I can satisfy the Tempter’s challenge.

Power also leaks when the Tempter comes to poke holes in our “new wine bottles” (Matt. 9:17). When the Tempter says, “If you are” he is saying that you don’t have a right to be, to exist, to do it, or to have this power until you explain and justify it. Of course, to do so would be self-negation. Hold your ground. Stand on the Word of God and refuse to leak power!