The Cork Flies Off!

The pressure is building. The believers had been meeting and praying and hoping and waiting in Jerusalem for that Promise. This bottling up of anticipation and prayer had been going on for weeks. (Acts 2:1-13) 

And now it is the great feast day (Pentecost). Jerusalem is full of devout seekers from "every nation under heaven". The stage is set. And the cork flies off!

Hurricane noise suddenly fills the house. The Holy Spirit spreads like wildfire. The believers begin shouting out strange languages, And a bewildered assorted crowd gathers. They are actually hearing God's great works proclaimed in their native tongue! How are these uneducated Galileans able to speak so? Hmm...

Then we delight to see the newly emboldened Peter stand up. He raises his voice above the din, and begins the first proclamation of the Good News. Further reading reveals that the church is being birthed as 3,000 souls are added the to bodyl 

Wow, who is going to forget that service? You gotta love God's thrilling ways! He is so out of our neat, controlled, orderly boxes. We love You, Lord.

Drawing Straws?

They might have all been thinking, "He's gone. Jesus is really gone. What in the world do we do?" (Acts 1:9-26)  It seems that Peter went to the scripture to find out more about God's plan. And they all went to prayer and waiting - like Jesus had said.

Soon Peter is emboldened to stand up in front of the 120 devout praying folks and proclaim that all that had happened with Jesus and Judas was just as the scripture had foretold. (Really that betrayal must have been a terrible blow.) So Peter says that another must take Judas' place. (Psalm 109:8) 

In short, it was time to move on. So the folks came up with the names of two men who had been through it all. But how to choose? Well, they prayed and "they they drew straws. Matthias won and was counted in with the eleven apostles." (The Message)

How's that for faith! I love it.

The Grace to Wait

It was His last command. His parting instruction. It was paramount: "Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised..." (Acts 1:1-6)

Jesus, Himself, had already learned to wait. We probably would have thought He was ready when He got to His full stature. In fact it sounded like He had the wisdom at 12: "All who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers". (Luke 2:47)  

But He did not begin at 12 or 18 or 21. He was 30 years old. Years of suffering and oppression had gone by for His people. But Jesus had waited. He waited until the Father said it was time. ("I have come down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me." John 6:30).

We so need to learn to wait. We run ahead. We run around. We get a good idea and go with it. But is it from our Lord? 

Lord give us the grace to wait - to wait upon You. Then we will be in the right place to receive Your promises as the first disciples were: "but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."