I am a husband, father, brother, son, pastor, poet, activist, and engineer... I care deeply about the world and am often overwhelmed by all that is going on... I'm most offended by greed and rudeness, and I believe that selfishness is the practical opposite of love...
After Jesus told His disciples to go and wait – to stay in the city until they received the promise of Father – the disciples obeyed Him.
So they went and waited, and while they waited they were togetherpraying.
Sadly, in our times and for many of us, prayer is dismissed as either doing nothing or as an act of desperation – a last resort.
But prayer is one of the ways we prepare our hearts for what is to come! Prayer is a prerequisite to the promise of the Father – the power of God to be who we were created to be, and to carry out the plans He has set before us!
The magnitude of the mission before them would require more than excitement and emotion – they would need more than adrenaline and activities !
While we are waiting for our help to arrive, or discerning what’s next for ourselves , we needn’t neglect to devote ourselves to prayer – AND – we don’t isolate ourselves.
Power and help are on the way!
All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
After Jesus’ resurrection and before His ascension, He gave His disciples instructions to go and wait for the, ‘promise of the Father.’
After recounting to them all of what they encountered over His time with them, He told them to ‘stay in the city’ until they received ‘power from on high…’
‘Stay in the city,’ He said.
All who were present were witnesses to the teaching, the miracles, the passion, and now the resurrection. Wasn’t that enough? Why must they wait?
Perhaps Jesus knew the problems that lay ahead of them. Perhaps He knew what pressure they would face in the days to come. Perhaps He knew the persecution they would have to endure.
Jesus wanted His disciples to be prepared for what was ahead.
The disciples would need more than just excitement to carry out the mission that was assigned to them. They would need more than just the memory of what they had witnessed. They would need a personal, life-changing, infusion of the Spirit’s power to not only start, but sustain their efforts.
How many times have we set out to do something without the necessary vision and power to see it through to the end?
I know there are many tasks, projects, and goals that I have pursued that began with excitement, but over time they fizzled out. Sometimes it was because my great idea was just that, ‘my great idea.’ Other times, it was because I hadn’t appropriately assessed the cost of the project. And then there were times when I just didn’t have the resources or the power to finish well.
Jesus would have no such thing for His disciples. So, He told them to go and wait, to stay in the city, until their Helper arrived.
I can remember hearing old preachers say, ‘I can feel my help coming…’
In their own way and with the simplest expression they were signaling their need to rely on Someone beyond themselves, Someone beyond their strength, Someone beyond their giftedness – to sustain the work they were trying to do!
We would all do well to learn the same. Wait, stay, be still until our Helper comes! Wait, stay, be patient, don’t proceed until your power comes! Then you will have not only everything you need to get started, but also everything you need to sustain your efforts, and to see things through to the end!
In the meantime, ‘Stay in the city!’
49 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.”
I always chuckle a bit when I hear people, particularly clergy, speak of the ‘new ways’ the Spirit is moving and what new trends we need to adhere to, if we are to be relevant to the culture. I can remember being a young minister and almost succumbing to the hype – the constant pressure to create something innovative, to keep the Gospel fresh, to make sure that our faith ‘looks cool’ to the young people and to those on the fringes of commitment to Christ.
As I’ve gotten older as both a minister and a tech professional, I’ve come to realize that everything that is new becomes old and while advances in technology do occur, much of what is new is the result of someone reconsidering some old principle or practice and then tweaking it a little bit… It’s a remix – nothing really new under the sun, huh?
Remember when cell phones got super small and that was the thing? See how now all of us are walking around with flat screen televisions pressed to our faces? In many ways we have the same basic functionality the either way, but the presentation has changed… Same stuff, repackaged, rebranded, but no less the same!
At this point, I probably sound like a grumpy old man, so let me get to the point.
When it comes to the work of the Holy Spirit and the relevance of the Gospel, we need to tread lightly. When you go to chasing trends and fads, we would do well to take care, because while we like to imagine that God is ‘doing a new thing,’ the ’new thing’ that the prophet was speaking of is Jesus!
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
Isaiah 43:19
So, then, be careful of listening to those who claim that God ‘told them to tell you…’ or that ‘God is doing a new thing…’ We must not be enamored by innovation, this is a means to an end, but in these times we need inspiration and revelation from God’s word declared and rightly divided by the power of the Holy Spirit!
How do we both neglect, misrepresent someone at the same time?
The most obvious answer is to fail to listen intently and the second reason is an extension of the former – we don’t really know them.
The Holy Spirit is the most neglected and misrepresented person of the Godhead. Separated from God the Father and Jesus the Son, things have been attributed to the Spirit that often contradict the character of God.
So, how do we discern when the Spirit is at work? For Christians, the Bible is normative. But understanding scripture does not always come easy.
Studying requires more than just reading – it requires grasping context, culture, history, and genre! It requires understanding literary devices and rhetoric. It requires one to identify presuppositions and assumptions that may influence one’s interpretation, and it requires sitting under the words we dare to stand over and declare to others.
Because the Bible is a spiritual document written for spiritual purposes for spiritual people, it requires devotion before one attempts declaration or demonstration.
But this studying is absolutely worth it. It provides a basis for an intimacy that allows us to recognize the voice of the Spirit amid the myriad other voices (even our own) that may be shaping our views and guiding our actions.
So, if your desire is to understand the work of the Spirit and discern the direction we must go, we must not neglect our need for regular and intentional study.
We know better what God is saying when we acquaint ourselves with what God has already said. There is no substitute, no Cliff’s Notes, no shortcuts to true understanding. Get it?
Make time for studying. Get a good study Bible (if you don’t have one, let me know), stay active in Bible study or small groups, pray, and then watch God’s will become clear to you!
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
When we encounter God’s presence, we should experience bits of both comfort and conviction. The Holy Spirit is both cheerleader and challenger, a teacher and a trainer.
In nearly equal parts, the Holy Spirit is both a doting parent and drill sergeant – our Helper and also the One who haunts and hassles us when we need correction!
We need both. The problem is that most of us gravitate toward one aspect of the Spirit’s presence while we reject the others!
We lean in willingly to the comfort of the Holy Spirit, but then we resist anything that challenges or convicts us. We often crave coddling while we resist coaching.
Or…we succumb to the opposite expression. With a conflicting sense of both self-righteousness and self-deprecation – we express conviction so fervently that we end up lacking compassion for ourselves or for others.
The Holy Spirit is both our Comforter and our Counselor, who chastens, challenges, consoles, and has compassion on us. And we need all of this! Too much compassion and we invariably cheapen grace; too much conviction and we are consumed by guilt that renders grace ineffective. We need both the compassion and conviction that accompanies the Spirit’s presence and nothing less.
All else is a distortion of the character of God – a liability, that will eventually rob us of the life-giving power, and the liberating presence of God the Holy Spirit – rendering us either too weak or too rigid to embrace and enjoy the promise of the Father!
We must learn to accept the fullness of God’s presence, the Holy Spirit within us – with all of the conviction and compassion, the comfort and the correction that follows. This is the holy power that challenges and changes, trains and transforms us!
Come, Holy Spirit, in the fullness of Your power, fill us, feed us, and fix us, in Jesus’ name!
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
Have you ever been on the road behind a large vehicle that blocks your view and impedes your progress?
I have, and I think it has unnecessarily raised my blood pressure on several occasions. But I’ve learned something over the years.
Some obstacles, and I must stress very firmly the ‘some,’ can be avoided with patience, distance, and just a little bit of planning. Some delays can be prevented when we develop a broader perspective.
By giving ‘big things’ room sometimes we can see better. We can see around them in ways that we cannot when you’re right up on them. Huge impasses become manageable and sometimes avoidable when we give ourselves time and space to move around them.
No, we cannot avoid every obstacle, but we also don’t need to get stuck trying to plow through stuff we may be able to go around if we give ourselves some time and space.
By learning to look down the road a bit, we are not consumed by what’s immediately before us. We realize that we can perhaps even change lanes. Does that make sense?
It may simply be that we need to learn to slow down, and to develop some patience, in order to avoid the frustration caused by the disruptions that life sometimes serves us. We can get where we’re going safely and with less anxiety by giving ourselves just a little extra time and space. Try that out!
Are there some large things looming ahead of you that are obscuring your view and impeding your progress? Give yourself some time and some distance, and you may see that you can get around it, and if you can’t get around it, you can at least make it safely through!
Slow down. Give yourself some time and space. Be patient. You will get where you’re going!
Remember:
The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way…
Change is inevitable, adversity is unavoidable, but God is faithful and God’s grace is enough. That’s how we make it from one day to the next, from one season to the next, through storms and crises, through losses, and through setbacks.
God is faithful and God’s grace is enough.
We are not surprised by transitions, or supplanted by sudden shifts, neither are we dismayed by disruptions or delays. We are prepared for whatever comes, not because of what we have done, but because of what GOD has done for us, and WHO abides within us.
God is faithful and God’s grace is enough.
Through all types of tribulations, we are confident and we are of good cheer, because…
God is faithful and God’s grace is enough!
There are no emergencies for an all-knowing, all powerful, ever-present, promise-keeping God. We are going to be okay, no matter what, because…
God is faithful and God’s grace is enough!
33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
Change is inevitable and adversity is unavoidable. But, we possess agency – that is the ability to choose how we respond to these things. While we are certainly all shaped by our circumstances, we needn’t allow these things to define us. We are all more than the sum of our experiences. We are more than what we’ve been through. We are more than our trials and challenges. This is God’s grace to us.
We grow, we learn, and we are changed by what we go through, but God’s grace is also at work and able to transform our experiences so that what is apparently destructive may become mysteriously constructive. God is able, when we yield to grace, to not only grow us but to get the glory out of everything that we endure and encounter. This means that no matter what stage we are at on the journey, or what chapter we are on in our story, we are not at the end, and God can turn things around. God can take even what people intend as evil and make it work out for our good and for the good of others! (Genesis 50:20)
Don’t take my word for it, though. Ask Joseph, or Hannah, ask Paul or Silas, ask Jesus!
Choose today to trust God. While circumstances may have wearied you, don’t you dare doubt that God is yet at work, and God’s grace, living and active, is sufficient for you! (2 Cor. 12:9)
Hang in there. Lean on those who love you. This is not your end. This is not your destination. God is not finished. This too shall pass. This is God’s grace for you! God’s grace is enough!
Do you believe this?
28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[i] have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
Change is inevitable. We can meet it with resistance and risk breaking ourselves, or we can accept it with the resolve to learn and grow.
I remember my mother telling me that if I didn’t learn to bend, I would break. I don’t think she was suggesting that I compromise my character.
I think she was trying to help me to see that I couldn’t control everything, I wasn’t in charge, Things can and will change, I wouldn’t always like it, but I was in charge of how I responded to it and how I allowed it to impact my attitude and outlook.
I am still not a big fan of surprises and still appreciate routines, but I have learned to be less rigid and to move through transitions more gracefully – to grow and to embrace changes when they come.
How do we deal with the inevitability of change?
We grow.
We learn.
We keep going.
I know that we are all going through something beyond our control. We may not have asked for, expected, or ordered what is confronting us, but we get to choose how we respond. In my mother’s words, ‘bend, don’t break…’ Time and chance happen to us all! (Eccl. 9:11)
When life knocks us down or we fall down, we have a decision to make. We can view hardships and trials as opportunities for growth or we can reject them as something destructive. One requires grace and faith, the other judgment and fear.
While discipline is not pleasurable, it is also not always punishment. Punishment has to do with the infliction of a penalty for an offense, but discipline produces some things within us – things like wisdom, strength, resilience, and endurance. Punishment has to do with retribution but discipline is generative and restorative.
Now, to be clear, the process is rarely pleasant, but it is productive! Hang in there! Hold on! God is working some things out in us!
11 My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof,12 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.
Proverbs 3:11-12
God disciplines God’s children, because God loves us and wants to produce something in us that affirms us and brings glory to God’s name!
pastorpoet 