Tag: Acts

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.” Acts 1:4-5

One of the things that has always reinforced the historical accuracy of Jesus and what the Bible has to say is the sheer number of people that saw Jesus after he rose from the dead. He appeared many times over 40 days after his resurrection; and here it is stated with him “staying with” his disciples (In a closer translation, it is “eating with”), He instructs them not to leave Jerusalem. I mean think about it, all throughout all the books of history they all support Jesus coming to this earth and many accounts of him and his ministry but you don’t see any books whatsoever from anyone living at the time or shortly after that refutes his presence. If you think about all the people that were in the vicinity of those who saw Jesus after he rose from the dead, you’d think that if it were not true, that there would be so many people who would refute or write counterarguments to what has been written. But that just simply isn’t the case. Multitudes of people saw Jesus, saw his miracles, and saw him after he rose from the dead.

It may sound like in the paragraph above that I am trying to convince somebody that Jesus is real…I simply don’t need to. When you place your faith and trust in the King of Kings, the Holy Spirit that is given to you at the time of salvation reveals God to you in ways that are indescribable. And not only are they indescribable, but they’re numerous and non-coincidental. The longer and longer I go in my sanctification, the more and more I see God’s presence, God’s power, and God’s love.

This is why I only focus on these two verses today, because wrapped up in these two verses is exactly what my title of this post is –> Multitudes of people saw Jesus before His death and after He rose again. Additionally, we know that here in ten days from this date that Jesus said these things in these verses, His and prophecy was fulfilled in that the little church of Acts received the Holy Spirit manifested through tongues of fire.

APPLICATION:

I am so grateful for God’s word. Here I am this morning, just sitting before my Bible, in prayer to the God of the universe, who in His great mercy and grace continues to encourage me, love me, and increase my faith. My life I live, I live dedicated to him alone. I only hope to achieve what He has for me here to do before He calls me home or returns again.

The most recent book of the bible I finished was Galatians, and the last book of the New Testament that I have to cover is Acts. I’ve been hopping around over the last month or so to different passages in God’s word based on ministry needs over that time. But now it’s time for me to really dive in for myself.

I just got back from a trip to Mexico to build a house for a family in need with a bunch (53) of middle school students and amazing leaders (36). And one of the things that we did while we were there was to identify something that we wanted to leave in Mexico and no longer do, to essentially, “Put Off” and then to prayerfully consider something we were going to do differently (“Put On”) when we got back home, that the Lord was putting on our hearts through his Holy Spirit. In my case, the thing I am ‘Putting Off’ is “Skating through life and ministry” and my ‘Put On’ is to “Dive In & Go Deep”.

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. He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. Acts 1:1-3

Here in the first couple of verses of Acts, we find that this is the second book that the apostle Luke wrote to Theopolis. I think the biggest things that stand out to me in just these first couple of verses as I get started is just Luke’s desire to call out the amazing proof of the resurrection of Jesus. How Jesus spent forty days appearing to several people and confirming his resurrection through walking into a locked room, showing the wounds from his crucifixion, and even eating and drinking to show that he was real in human form and had risen.

Lastly, the thing that he was doing after his resurrection was speaking about the Kingdom of God. Isn’t this exactly what we should be doing after we have been resurrected from our dead old lives? Even in his resurrection, Jesus was modeling for us exactly what he wanted us to do in our lives after receiving the beautiful gift of grace and mercy through his own sacrifice on the cross.

APPLICATION:

Well, hopefully this is s sort of obvious, but my application that I take away from just these first few verses in Acts is that I need to be living a life that is talking about the Kingdom of God in my resurrected life.