Wait!

Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, "Which," He said, "you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." Acts 1:4-5

I want to emphasize the word wait.

Why would Jesus tell the disciples to wait for something He could immediately give? He did, after all, tell them to go into all the world and preach the gospel. Why in the world would they need to wait to begin such an enormous task?

Well I believe the answer is multi-faceted.

First off, the disciples, the early church were a fragmented group. They were! Many times in the gospels we see them fighting and jockeying with each other over who would be the most important in the Kingdom of God. Jesus couldn't use them as they currently existed. They had to wait to receive the Holy Spirit because they needed to be unified in purpose and mind. Peter, Paul, and John all echoed the command of Jesus in reference to this point as they explained in unison that we must love one another! Love covers a multitude of sins! It binds us together in harmony! Love never keeps a record of wrongs and it never fails! The early church, before it could receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit had to learn to love! I believe as Acts 1 unfolds, even the day of Pentecost before the Spirit falls, when we read about the early church praying in unison with each other, that was one of the issues and topics of prayer. "Oh Father! Bind us together in love!"

The second part of the equation I believe was Jesus was testing their commitment to Him. That the disciples and the 120 in the early church loved Jesus was without question. They did! But would their zeal for Him lead them to disobedience? You must remember, Jesus Himself proclaimed that He did only what He saw the Father doing, and said only what the Father told Him to say! Would the disciples likewise wait as instructed and proceed from there, or would they blindly stagger off in some misguided belief that they were doing the Lord's work and they would be ok? Now I don't know what would have happened had they just bolted out into the corners of the planet to preach, what I do know is they were obedient! They waited, patiently, fervently praying and turning towards the Lord, expecting Him to hear and answer! That surely must have been the longest 10 days in the any of their lives! They had no idea how long it would be before they were filled, Jesus had only told them a few days from now that they would receive, but it carried that stipulation, wait!

What are we doing in response to our Master and Savior? Do we rush off to do the Lord's work without receiving marching orders to do so? Remember Acts 2 came after Matthew 28, Mark 16, and Luke 24... The disciples were well aware of Jesus' command to evangelize the world, but they were told to wait! Wait for what? The Promise of the Father, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit! It would be their POWER to be His witnesses. Acts tells us of this power!

Power in the form of boldness and courage, as the Apostles and members of the church faced hardships, persecution, and death, and yet they marched on triumphantly proclaiming Jesus as Lord!

Power in the form of Spirit manifestations! What CEO would tell their employees to go to work and not give them the tools necessary to get the job done? Not that God is our CEO but we do work for Him! He wants to equip us for the work He has called us too! The confidence we have in all of this is that when we ask for anything, ANYTHING, ANYTHING according to His will He hears us and we know if He hears us we have what we have asked Him for!

Now as has been alluded to in other posts here, God will never grant us something we are not prepared for! If granting our petition will lead us into pride and then into a fall, the Lord would rather withhold those things from us until we are mature and prepared to handle the repsonsibility than grant us because we ask and then lose us to pride. For pride is the most wicked sin! Pride led Eve to eat the fruit. It led Cain to slay Abel. It led Satan to rebel against the Almighty! Pride sets up in our heart, it says, I have all I ever need! I can do it all myself, I don't need your help! Pride turns us into our own god! It will lead us, if unchecked, into full on rebellion to our Father. Father will not allow us to fall into pride by granting us a request He knows we can not handle. So let us instead plead to be prepared! Let us seek maturation at the hands of the Potter! May we be broken in order that He may reshape us in His image!

Were the disciples broken in like manner? Oh you bet they were! Peter at the head of the group, probably never knew pain like he felt the night he denied Jesus! I am sure he remember that night for the rest of his days! All of them as they fled from the garden were shattered! What were they to do? They had no hope now! But just as Jesus promised them, their sorrow would turn into joy!

The potter always remolds the pot after he has broken it. You see, in pottery, even the smalled crack can lead to catastrophic failure in the piece. We must be perfectly whole and well to receive the Holy Spirit of the Most High! You say, but I can not be so! I am human after all!

The problem with all of us is the flesh is a most powerful adversary. It wants us to please ourselves! It wants to live, instead of die. So for those new in the faith, it may take a while for the new life to shine. As they grow in the Spirit, what used to be works of the flesh, now become evident and multiplying fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faith, self-control. This is our perfection. As we walk with the Spirit, we are as perfect in the eyes of God. Are we not?

I mean, Peter sinned yet even after Pentecost, we read of this in Galatians 2 when he lead others into hypocrisy and nearly destroyed the gospel among Gentiles, but we know he continued to be full of the Spirit, why? Because he walked with the Spirit.

Paul, sinned, it is recorded several times in scripture, the most colorful account in Romans 7. He doesn't say what sin he dealt with, but he said he dealt with it yet anyway. But he was full of the Spirit until the moment Nero took his life, why? Because he walked with the Spirit.

Our perfection does not come by an act of our own will, although we do have a part to play in it. Our perfection comes from our closeness in relationship with the Spirit. As we walk with the Spirit we draw closer, and closer still to the Father, and He lavishes His Spirit upon us in due time.

So I say to you, sin shall not rule over you! You must put it to death within you, when you do sin, repent! IMMEDIATELY! Confess and receive forgiveness and walk again with the Spirit! I have come to see within myself that no good thing exists outside of what the Lord desires within me! But the power, the strength over our enemy, sin, is there! You are the TEMPLE OF THE MOST HIGH! What can possibly reside within you but pure, unadulterated love and perfection? Even those who are not Spirit-filled have this hope within them! That you can walk as Jesus walked! You can! You must! Deny yourself! Tell the flesh to take a hike! Hit the road jack and don't you come back NO MORE! HALLELUJAH!

You see friend, brother, sister, dear one to God, He loves you! He knows you, inside and out! He sees you, in your weakness, in your shame! Yet, He clothes you with Himself, you must be enlightened to this glorious reality before you can receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit as the early church did! I pray for all of us to be worthy of such a glorious undertaking! I pray for all of us to live our lives worthy of the gospel! I pray that the Lord Jesus Christ, our Father in glory, would pour out the Holy Spirit on us and be glorified through us today!