His final words. 

                                                                                           

                                                                                           Image by Gizelle Kei at Pixabay


Acts 1: 8 - "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth."


Acts is one of my favourite books in the Bible, it begins with Jesus' final days on Earth before he ascends into Heaven and then details the early church, how they received the Holy Spirit and began the Christian Church. 

The start tells us how Jesus appeared for 40 days to many people. He taught them during this time, showed them how everything that happened fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament, equipping them to be leaders and missionaries sharing the good news. Many sceptics will say that Jesus never rose gain or was not really dead in the first place.  But I believe both those ideas are wrong. When Jesus was pierced on the cross both water and blood poured out, this was medical proof of his death. The amount of witnesses that saw the resurrected Jesus was proof he rose again. I love the way Charles Colson puts it, Charles was a man involved in the Watergate scandal that rocked the White House during Nixon's time.   

    “I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men            testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40             years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They     would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful         men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles         could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.”

The other things to talk about in this opening part of chapter 1 is that the disciples where still slow to get it. They asked Jesus about restoring the Kingdom of Israel, probably still thinking along the lines of a military leader, after all here was a guy that defeated death which is pretty handy in a war situation. But Jesus' response is not what they expected and it is important to take note of as it was his last words while he walked the Earth. He said "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

People who get a chance of last words really think about what they are going to say. Jesus tells them they will be witnesses first at home then to the whole world, everyone is to hear about Jesus and the Good News. But he also addresses their unspoken fears with him going in that He will give them the Holy Spirit who will empower them to be able to do it. Some of them at this stage may have recalled his words earlier "With man this is impossible but with God all things are possible." (Mark 19:26)

If these were his last words to his disciples, they are important to us. We too, receive the Holy Spirit and we too should be  should be his witnesses to the ends of the Earth. For many of us the small thinking of the disciples would have excluded us as we do not have a Jewish heritage, thank God that His plan was way bigger than that and we are welcomed into God's family. 


        Thank you for reading my reflections. I you haven't yet, and want to keep reading them,               please press follow above the title. Also feel free to share this with anyone who you feel             might benefit. 








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
A tragic tale The story of the beheading of John the Baptist is one of loss that goes far beyond the tragic death of John. The other 3 main characters are all a cautionary tale of loss that we need to heed.  Let's start with Herod. Here was a man who initially "feared John and protected him [John], knowing him to be a righteous and holy man" (Mark 6:20). What went wrong, how did he go from protecting him to ordering his murder? He was saving face. He was too proud to admit he had been ensnared and didn't want to seem the fool in front of his dinner guests. This decision cost him dearly. I believe he became a shadow of himself after this fatal decision, living a life consumed by fear. The bible tells us when he hears of Jesus his thoughts immediately wonder if he is John resurrected. And he tried to see him. Why would someone in Herod's position want to see a carpenter from Nazareth? If he believed he was John maybe he wanted to beg forgiveness? Or maybe he was try...
Read more
Image
What would it look like to earnestly pray?  Acts 12: 5 - So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him. While reading the story of Peter being rescued out of prison by an angel, I was struck by the word, earnestly. The Bible tells us that before Peter walked out of that prison, the church was praying earnestly for him.  This is one of my favourite bible stories and one of the reasons is because I have read the book The Heavenly Man*. It is the biography of Brother Yun, a Chinese Christian who was persecuted, like Peter, for his faith. In fact he found himself in a similar situation. He too was in prison, he too was likely facing execution, but he was in a worse state physically - his legs had both been broken and he could not walk. But praise God, he too experienced a miracle. His legs were healed and the Holy Spirit said to him, "Go now! The God of Peter is your God!" (p.256). Brother Yun proceeded to walk straight past a guard who did...
Read more
Image
Whose Kingdom?   Image from Klikin @ Pixabay John 6:15 - Jesus saw that in their enthusiasm they were about to grab him and make him king, so he slipped off and went back up the mountain to be by himself.   This verse comes right after Jesus fed the 5000 from what was initially five barley loaves and 2 fish. He performed this great miracle which showed people who he was and what he could do, and their response was to try to fashion him into a king after their design. Remember the Jews were expecting a messiah that would be a military leader who would overthrow the Romans, their oppressors at the time. They were blinded to the fact that the true messiah had a much larger battle to fight, a battle not of flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). In seeing his miracle, they enthusiastically come up with their own plan and in doing so missed what Jesus is doing and going to do.  This verse makes me think of 2 things:  1. We can often rush into things for God that are more a...
Read more