|
Today's Devotional
Waiting For God's Work
Acts 1:4-5 (ESV)
"And while staying with them he ordered them not to
depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the
Father, which, he said, you heard from me; for John baptized
with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit
not many days from now."
I remember as a child that my parents bought
me a bike for Christmas one year. It was my dream bike:
a cherry red, 12 speed all terrain bike. This bike was amazing,
but it had one big flaw, it was too big for me. I could
ride it, but not well, and quickly became frustrated with
the bike as I struggled to control it. The great part about
this deal was that I did eventually grow to a size that
I could ride with ease, it just took a lot of patience on
my part. Can you imagine being told by Jesus that He has
a lot of work for you to do, and there would be great miracles,
but not to start until the Holy Spirit came down and kicked
in His own power? They must have been going crazy for a
few days or weeks, wondering what it would be like when
God finally showed up and did his work. It's the same for
us today a lot of times. We want to do awesome things for
God, but we can't do it on our own, and we just have to
be patient for God to give us strength, wisdom, or just
to work things out. The waiting game can be brutal, but
when we wait on the Lord, His work is perfect, and unmistakable.
Application Questions:
1. Do you find it hard to wait on the Lord?
2. Do you find yourself trusting God enough to trust His
timing?
3. Why does it pay to make the effort to be sure God is
at the center of what we are doing in life?
Other Devotionals from This
Series
Connecting the Dots
Acts 1:1-3 (ESV)
"In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with
all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when
He was taken up, after he had given commands through the
Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. To them
he presented himself alive after his suffering by many proofs,
appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the
kingdom of God."
The author of the book of Acts is a man
historians call "Luke the physician". He also
wrote the self titled letter known as the gospel of Luke.
It turns out, the letter of Acts and Luke were both written
by Luke to a friend of his named Theophilus. He reminds
us here that in the gospel of Luke, he wrote all about the
work of Jesus in the resurrection, and the arrival of the
Holy Spirit after Jesus went back up to heaven. Now he is
continuing on the story of what the Holy Spirit has done
in the beginning of the church. The book of Acts connects
the work of Jesus in the gospels, to the work of the Holy
Spirit in the church Epistles. This is so important because
with out this book, all we would know is that Jesus Christ's
own people rejected him, and then He went away. The book
of Acts helps us understand where we fit in this eternal
story, not just as Gentiles, but as a body, or church of
both Jews and Gentiles joining together to know God and
make Him known.
Application Questions:
1. If the Holy Spirit was given to us to help us in the
absence of Jesus, do you see Him as vital to your spiritual
growth and guidance?
|
