1ST JULY
Luke 24:45-49
“Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.’”
“You are witnesses,” but you need the Holy Spirit to clothe your witness with God’s power!
With Jesus’ resurrection, so many things came into focus for his followers: the significance of his death on the cross at the time of Passover, the message of repentance, the forgiveness of sins that his personal sacrifice had achieved. This had to “be proclaimed in his name to all nations.”
They realised that this witnessing was what he had trained them for. Yet he told them to wait. It wasn’t enough to know what needed to be shared; it wasn’t enough that they had a passion to share it. There was still something without which their witness would not make any difference—the active work of the Holy Spirit.
It was the work of the Holy Spirit that had set Jesus’ ministry apart from all others. The work of the Holy Spirit will set your witness apart too and make it spiritually fruitful in the lives of the people you encounter today.
MAKE IT PERSONAL:
How did the relationship between Jesus and the Holy Spirit look like while Jesus was on Earth? Based on that, how should your relationship with the Holy Spirit look like?