Focus

Experience silence in the midst of your busy day. Take some time to relax into a time to be with God.

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Read

Acts 1:1-5 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

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Reflect

Jesus, the great promise-keeper, has promised the Holy Spirit, and Luke, having written Acts, did so as a way of assuring the accuracy of the beginning of the Christian church. This is especially crucial for us in this present day, because we need a strong, eye-witness account/foundation, as we navigate through this life as Christian believers, who are responsible for witnessing with great conviction, Jesus.

I am certain this eye-witness account would forever prove that Jesus provided real-time evidence of miracles and obvious reasons why Israel ‘was wrong to reject Jesus as their Messiah and Lord’.

Today, we have more than enough knowledge and accounts, that we can do what the Apostles did, continually proclaim the birth, crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension…and His place in heaven with His Father, interceding on our behalf. Additionally, realize that we, too, are equipped/gifted through the Holy Spirit, the ‘helper’ left to us by God through Jesus Christ, to be conduits through which miracles can still be performed in this present day.

As the church, the body of Christ/Christian believers, we are to spread the gospel, with the help of the Holy Spirit, which gives power to all who believe in Jesus Christ. Because many examples were set that prayer is crucial, and powerful, when not amiss, and gives life to all our work down here as the church, and as individual believers/witnesses.

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Pray

Heavenly Father, I love you and exhort you before both the believer and non-believer. I pray that not even one of us will ever/ever again discount, rewrite, nor disregard any aspect of your sovereignty, nor your Son’s life, death, and resurrection. I pray that the insecure, low-self-esteemed man and woman will realize their power is not in self, but by and through your Spirit. Holy Spirit, you are welcome in this place. In Jesus’ mighty, matchless name, Amen.

Go with God!