When Jesus met up with His disciples after the resurrection He reminded them of the heart of who He was and what He was about, “that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (vs. 47). Jesus was not a Jewish phenomenon. Who Jesus was and what He did was for “all the nations.” That’s why you and I are apart of the kingdom of God today. We came on the scene two thousand years after the Christ event, and we live half a world a way for it. Yet, here we are, alive in the very life of Jesus. Forgiveness has come to us, and we find the heart of our lives in the very heart of Jesus.
How did it all come to us? Jesus told His first followers, “You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (vs. 48-49). They stayed in the city, and the promise of the Father was given to them. The Holy Spirit filled their lives with the power of God and they began to live in the power of God’s Spirit. Wherever they went they took Jesus. The witnessed. They baptized. They modeled life in Christ. They went beyond Jerusalem and all throughout Judea. They journeyed throughout the Middle East, all the way into Europe, and all the way to the Americas – all around the world. They are still standing for Christ in the world. The message of Jesus is alive and still changing lives.
John Henry Jowett spoke of how God seems always to use “Commonplace People” to do His work in the world. Commonplace people, filled with the Holy Spirit, become “ambassadors of His grace.” Of God’s work in commonplace people Jowett writes,
He will make a humdrum duty shine like the wayside bush that burned with fire and was not consumed. He will make our daily business the channel of His grace. He will take our disappointments, and, just as we sometimes put banknotes into black-edged envelopes, He will fill them with treasures of unspeakable consolation. He will use our poor, broken, stammering speech to convey the wonders of His grace to the weary sinful souls of men. (My Daily Meditation, 1914, October 14 devotional thought)
“He will use our poor, broken, stammering speech to convey the wonders of His grace to the weary sinful souls of men.” This is what the Holy Spirit did two thousand years ago, and it is what He does today. And, there are weary folks all around us, people with great pains, with many questions, with deep disappointments, in broken relationships, and with shattered dreams. The Good News of the Gospel is theirs. May we be filled with the Holy Spirit so that God can use us to share that Good News. Maybe, we need to hear that Good News for ourselves.
“Father, fill us with Your Holy Spirit, and work the works of God in us and through us. Use our “stammering speech to convey the wonders of [Your] grace.” Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment