The Book of Acts starts with a kind of prelude pointing to the power of the Holy Spirit and the spread of the message of the Kingdom as far as the ends of the earth.
It begins with a quick recap of the facts of Jesus’ death and resurrection, including the command to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus promises they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes. Then, even as He is saying this, Jesus is taken up to heaven. Two angels appear to confirm that Jesus has gone to heaven but will one day return.
The promise of Jesus is that when the Holy Spirit comes, we will receive power to be His witnesses everywhere.
In the church we have many evangelism training programs and classes. But Jesus did not say, “When you finish this course you will be My witnesses.”
We have many words, scripts and formulations, but Jesus did not say, “When you get the words right, you will be My witnesses.”
The professional evangelists, those with the ministry gift of evangelist, often try to guilt the rest of us into doing evangelism. But Jesus did not tell us to witness from a place of guilt, or feelings of religious duty.
When the Holy Spirit comes upon us, then we will receive power and we will be His witnesses. This is a promise that, in some way, the Holy Spirit will use each one of us to “be witnesses”, that is to have the nature of a person who points others to Christ. Under the power of the Holy Spirit this will happen naturally (or supernaturally) out of our new nature.
For too long, the church has brought training program after training program to “equip” people to share faith- with little result. Instead, we need to focus our attention on waiting for the Holy Spirit, receiving the Holy Spirit, being baptised in the Holy Spirit. Then we will be witnesses.
I long to see a church filled with people so full of the Holy Spirit that they can’t help but be witnesses to the love of Jesus.
(NEW LIFE NARRABRI)