It is a pretty incredible story, actually. One day the gathering of believers in Jerusalem is 120 in number, and ten days later they add 3000 people to the church. Then it is daily growth, and after a few days, 5000 more men, plus women and children. By all counts, it is an incredible multiplication of followers of Jesus, the Christ.
In Acts 1, Jesus instructs the first group to wait in Jerusalem until they are clothed with power from God through the person of the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately we sometimes forget who is responsible for what in the life of the church. We forget that only God can bring new life to a person. And while there are aspects of the day of Pentecost as non-repeatable as there are aspects of the Bethlehem story of the birth of Jesus non-repeatable, we still need to be clothed with God’s power as the church.
Jesus told us to make disciples. And He told us to train those disciples to do all the things that He trained the original disciples to do. We introduce people to Jesus, we teach them to pray and live in God’s Word. We teach them to be baptized, and to gather in groups to encourage one another. Acts 2 gives a great description of this in action.
Throughout history there have been repetitions of the great movements of God’s Kingdom, Jesus movements. Today we often call them “Church Planting Movements” and they are prolific in many parts of our world. What would it take for a genuine Kingdom movement to occur in the United States? What prevents an outpouring of God’s Spirit from releasing such a movement in our lifetime?
Is it possible that we hinder God’s work with some of our man-made traditions? Is it that we fail to heed God’s admonition, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, then will I hear from heaven . . .” Do you long for a fresh wind of God to blow on our nation? It must begin in the church of the living Christ? Will we wait before God in prayer? Will you?
bradunleashed 