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Good morning dear friends;
This is Friday May 3rd and we’re reading today Acts chapter 2, as you know, one of the most important and powerful chapters in the Bible.
Between the time Jesus ascended and Pentecost, His friends spent 10 days waiting…that’s what Jesus had told them to do…wait.
Are you good at ‘waiting’, especially when you are anxious for something very special to happen?
Jerusalem was teeming with thousands of visitors…narrow streets jammed, lines at the shops, the Temple area packed with people. The second most important Jewish festival was approaching… First Fruits; or Harvest Festival, we know it as Pentecost.
I envision those close friends of Jesus filling their days and evenings talking about… Jesus. What He said, the miracles He did, how He amazed them. But the disciples, I’m confident were ruminating on several very specific things Jesus had said to them… what did He mean when he had said …
* “I will ask the Father and He will send you another Counselor to help you and be with you forever – the Spirit of Truth…you know Him for He lives with you and will be IN you. I will not leave you as orphans…” (John 14:16-18)
* “The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you…” (John 14:26)
* “Very truly I tell you, it is for your good I am going away. Unless I go, the Counselor will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you…when He, the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth…” (John 16:7,13)
* “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
Can you see it… the disciples huddled together reminding each other of these things Jesus had said to them. Can you see their eyes widening, their glances darting to and fro. Can you see them starting to wring their hands in excited anticipation.
These men knew the Old Testament very well. They knew the Spirit of God had come upon Gideon (Judges 6:34) and with a small band of men he’d defeated a huge army. They knew the Spirit of God had come on Saul when he was anointed king, and then later on David when he was anointed king. So they wondered… in those 10 days while they waited…what would it be like when the Holy Spirit came in POWER to live within them?
Who would they become?
How would the Spirit change them?
What would be the evidence it wasn’t just some emotional thing, but it was truly a life transforming anointing of the Spirit of God, in each of them?
. . .and then it happened.
It sounded like a tornado, and then the age old evidence of the holy presence of God, FIRE, tongues of fire settling on each of them, but not burning them.
Crowds gathered… Jews who had come to Jerusalem for Pentecost from all over the Roman Empire. God’s great strategic plan was evident again.
And the crowds asked… what’s happening here?
And the Disciples responded… but in the languages of the many different people, languages they had never learned… but languages the Holy Spirit enabled them to speak fluently, and in those languages they told the Gospel of Jesus Christ to thousands of Jews.
Don’t you love Acts 2:12 “Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another “what does this mean’!
Yes! Yes my friends…that’s it.
The people who watch you and me live our lives, should regularly be ‘amazed and perplexed‘ and ask each other “what does this mean” as they see the evidence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, our marriages, our families and our churches!
So… read Acts 2, all of it, several times today… and stand in front of a mirror, look yourself in the eye and ask this question: “is this me”? “Is the Spirit of God powerfully alive in ME and my family and my church”?
And then find some time today to talk with Jesus… about Acts 2 in you!
I hope we each and all have a great day.
By the way, are these daily ‘commentaries’ I’m writing helpful to you?
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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