The Command

 "On the Day of Pentecost, seven weeks after Jesus' resurrection, the believers were meeting together in one place." Acts 2:1

Scripture tells us that after He rose from the dead, Jesus appeared to more than 500 people, yet on the Day of Pentecost, there were just 120 gathered in the upper room. Where were the other 380 plus?

The Bible doesn't tell us where they were, but preacher and writer John Bevere said, "Those 120 were dead to their own agendas," suggesting that perhaps the others were not, at least not at that time in their faithwalk. As a result, they missed out on what may have been the most momentous event the church has ever known, Jesus' promised an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon His church. Before He ascended to heaven, He had commanded His followers to "not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you what He has promised." He didn't suggest this. He commanded it. This points to a much neglected teaching within the church; we are commanded to be filled with the Spirit. We, like the 120, are to be still before Him, focused upon Him, and passionately seeking all the fullness of His Spirit. Yielded and surrendered to and before Him. Empty of the control of the self-life that we may be filled with all the fullness of His Life. Bevere believes that only 120 of those He'd appeared to were at such a place in their faith lives, the rest were not. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. So, dare we allow ourselves to be confronted with the question; He has commanded us to seek all the fullness and infilling of His Holy Spirit. He has promised that fullness if we will. Which group are we going to be found in the face of His command? Those who have died to their will and way, or....those who have not....and may never at all?

Some years back, Francis Chan wrote a book titled, "The Unknown God." He was speaking of the Holy Spirit, of whom He said most of the professing church knew little or nothing about. We don't understand His Personhood, so often thinking of Him as a "thing," rather than a Person. We don't understand, indeed fear, His ministry and presence in our lives. We are so intent upon running not only our lives, but His church according to the leadings of our flesh and not of the Spirit. We trust in our own natural gifts and not upon His supernatural gifts of the Spirit. In truth, we have made the Holy Spirit a kind of "silent partner" in the church. We admit that He's real, but we don't really want Him to actually show up in that which we're doing. We give Him lip service, not heart service. As a result we quench His Spirit, and have no real sense of His Presence, and don't really know we might be, or are completely lacking His Presence at all. As Bevere says, "The Holy Spirit comes with power, but He leaves very quietly." I think in many of our fellowships, we have so neglected His Person and ministry that He has receded, withdrawn....and we haven't even noticed.

There are many things as concerns the ways of God and His church that I don't know, but I do know this; we have no future if we continue upon the man centered path that too much of the church has been following. We are coming up against challenges, opposition, even hatred, and the enemy that is behind it all, that we cannot hope to overcome apart from the power and ministry of His Spirit at work in us. The hour of need is upon us. The command has been given. Will we be found obedient to the command, and the recipients of the promise?

I close with a repeat of His command, to both wait for and seek with surrendered hearts and lives all the fullness of His Spirit; the fruit of Pentecost which He still gives. With that, I offer up a question that the early church would always ask those they encountered who had come to faith in Christ; "Have you received the Holy Spirit since you first believed?" We can debate what it means to be Spirit filled, but what can't be debated is that we are to be filled with His Spirit, and exhibit lives that show the world that we are. Lives of power, victory, and miracles. Are we and our churches exhibiting such power? In our hearts we know the answer. In our hearts we know whether we have, or have not, obeyed His command to be filled with His Spirit. What do our hearts say of this right now?

Blessings,

Pastor O