Obedience and the Vector of the Word: The Spirit’s Power in Luke

by Dave Miller

Driving west toward Garden City, Kansas, on my way to serve alongside Andy a CoVo leader in the region, I found myself listening through the Gospel of Luke. I’d heard it many times before, but this time something clicked. Luke’s Gospel is not just a story of Jesus empowered by the Holy Spirit—it’s a carefully woven revelation of how the Father’s will moves with power and authority through His Son, His disciples, and now through us.

That motion, the way divine will becomes divine action, is the vector of the Word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. 

A Quick Aside - Vector

A vector, in physics, is a quantity that has both magnitude and direction. Magnitude simply means how big, strong, or fast something is, and direction means which way it’s going. You can picture it by thinking about throwing a football: the magnitude is how hard or fast you throw it, and the direction is the path the ball takes through the air. Put together, that’s a vector; motion with purpose, not random or aimless, but moving with a specific force toward a specific target. Now let’s look at the vector in Luke’s Gospel.

The Spirit as the Power and Authority of the Word

From the opening chapters, Luke sets the tone. The Spirit descends, fills, and directs every movement of redemption.

• The angel tells Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35).

• Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesies.

• Zechariah, once mute, is filled with the Spirit and speaks blessing.

• Simeon, moved by the Spirit, comes to the temple to see the Christ.

By the time Jesus steps onto the scene, the pattern is clear: the Spirit is not an accessory to God’s work; He is the authority and power by which the Word is carried out.

Then, in Luke 3, when Jesus is baptized, the heavens open, the Spirit descends, and the Father speaks: “You are My beloved Son.”

Immediately after, in Luke 4, that Word takes direction: “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.” The same Spirit that empowered creation now carries the Word into confrontation, temptation, and triumph.

When Jesus returns to Galilee, Luke writes, “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit.” That phrase is not casual, it’s the thesis of Luke’s entire Gospel. In fact, it is the thesis of the entire Luke-Acts narrative. Every miracle, every teaching, every act of mercy or deliverance flows through that single truth: Jesus acts in the power of the Spirit.

The Vector of the Word in Motion

When Jesus reads from Isaiah in the synagogue—“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor” He is declaring not only His mission, but the means by which it will be fulfilled. The Word is spoken. The Father gives the direction. The Spirit gives it magnitude; authority, and execution.

Creation worked this way from the beginning.

The Father willed, the Son spoke, and the Spirit moved.

So too in redemption: the Father wills salvation, the Son becomes it, and the Spirit empowers it.

That’s why Jesus can say later, “If I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20). The “finger of God” is Luke’s poetic shorthand for the Spirit. The same finger that wrote the law now writes the kingdom into the world through the Word made flesh.

So when the disciples are sent out in Luke 9 and again in Luke 10, and Jesus gives them authority to drive out demons and to heal the sick, what is He giving them? The same thing the Father gave Him, the Spirit of God. The vector. The hand of divine authority at work in obedience.

The Progression Toward Luke 11

Luke’s narrative builds to a moment that seems almost understated: Luke 11.

The disciples, after watching Jesus live in perfect alignment with the Father’s will and the Spirit’s power, finally ask, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

They have seen Him cast out demons, heal the sick, forgive sins, and confront evil, all through the Spirit’s authority. But now they realize something deeper: everything Jesus does flows from His communion with the Father.

So Jesus gives them a prayer. Not just words, but a posture of dependence that aligns the heart with the Father’s purposes:

“Your kingdom come. Your will be done.”

Then He tells them to persist, to ask, seek, knock. Not for earthly gifts, but for the one gift that enables everything else:

“How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him” (Luke 11:13).

That statement is the culmination of everything Luke has shown us.

The Spirit who empowered Jesus is now the gift of authority and power to His disciples when they submit to the ways of the Kingdom.

The Spirit is not a feeling or an idea, He is the Father’s answer to persistent prayer, the power that gives the Word its affective power.

Obedience: Stepping into the Vector

All through Luke, Jesus ties blessing to obedience.

• “Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and obey it” (11:28).

• “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I say?” (6:46).

• “Whoever hears my words and puts them into practice is like a man who built his house on the rock.” (6:48).

In every instance, obedience is not simply moral compliance, it’s directional participation. It’s stepping into the vector of God’s Word, moving in alignment with His authority and power.

The Spirit’s power is not experienced beside obedience; it is experienced through obedience. Jesus shows us this in His own life.

He obeys the Father’s will at every turn, and in that alignment, the Spirit’s authority and power flows freely.

When we obey, we don’t generate power in ourselves, we step into the momentum of the Father’s will transforming everything through the Word in the power of the Spirit. We join the momentum the Word already carries. That’s why the Spirit-filled life is never static. It moves with purpose. The Spirit’s direction is always toward the Father’s will, the Son’s obedience, and the purpose for which He was sent. Those who follow Jesus and are filled with the Spirit will also be driven towards the Father’s will and the Son’s obedience. 

The Spirit Given for the Father’s Purposes

Luke’s Gospel shows the Holy Spirit is not primarily given for personal comfort but for divine commission. The Spirit’s presence is the power of the Word in motion.

When the Father gives the Holy Spirit in response to prayer, He is giving more than peace; He is entrusting us with participation in His purpose. The same power that molded creation into existence and raised Christ from the dead is now the power that carries our obedience into effectiveness.

So when we ask, seek, and knock, we are not trying to earn a blessing, we are aligning ourselves with it. We are saying, “Father, make my life move in the direction of Your Word.”

That’s where the Spirit meets us.

That’s where authority flows.

That’s where calling becomes obedience, and obedience becomes power.

The Living Vector of the Word

Luke’s Gospel begins with the Spirit hovering and ends with the promised Spirit and the need to wait until He comes. The story that started in Nazareth and Galilee moves outward through the obedient lives of those who receive the Spirit’s power. But they cannot move, until the Spirit comes. 

When Jesus ascends, He tells the disciples to wait, because the vector will continue. The Word will go out again, not just through one Man in Galilee, but through many who walk in the same Spirit, but apart from Him they could do nothing. 

And so it is today.

The Father still wills. 

The Son still speaks. 

The Spirit still moves. 

And obedience to the Word is still the place where we join the purpose of God.

To walk in obedience is to walk in the vector of God’s Word: the power and authority of the Spirit for the Father’s purposes. That is the movement Luke invites us into.

The Father wills.

The Son speaks.

The Spirit moves.

And we obey.

That is how the kingdom comes.