WHAT CAN WE NOT SEE?   
   How to be empowered   
      
   To Read: Ezekiel 10-12   
      
   To Know:   
      
   "To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs,   
   appearing to them during forty    
   days, and speaking of the kingdom of God. And while staying with them he   
   charged them not to depart    
   from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said,   
   'you heard from me,...'"   
   (Acts 1:3,4)   
      
   Stay put. Wait. Stay in position. Don't chase the play. Those were my orders   
   from the coach. My senior    
   year I played defensive end on our high school football team. The defensive   
   end has one primary job: to    
   make certain that the runner does not get to the outside run for a touchdown.   
      
   When Jesus rose from the dead, he gathered his disciples and re-commissioned   
   them. These eleven men    
   were to spearhead a mission to take the knowledge of Christ to the entire   
   world. The Lord's first words    
   seemed contradictory of this plan to reorder world history. Stay put. Wait.   
   Before the apostles could    
   successfully proclaim Christ to the world they needed power far beyond   
   anything known on earth. They    
   needed the Holy Spirit of God. God had promised to these mere human beings the   
   gift of his own Spirit.    
   The Spirit of God who had created the world was about to recreate it in   
   Christ. This Jesus planned to do    
   through the apostles.   
      
   To Do:   
      
   Fifty days after being crucified, Christ sent his Holy Spirit to the   
   believers. The wait was now over. For us    
   there is no waiting at all. Ever since the day of Pentecost whoever places   
   faith in Jesus' name receives    
   his Spirit. Paul wrote, ".Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does   
   not belong to him." (Rm.    
   8:9) If, indeed, your faith is in the name of Jesus then you are empowered.   
   Whatever Jesus Christ is    
   doing, that is what you are to do also. Jesus is winning the world to himself.   
   The gospel is universal   
   in its appeal. Nowhere has the message of the cross gone without finding those   
   willing to believe. At the    
   close of history, representatives from every tribe, tongue and nation on earth   
   will believe.   
      
   To Ask:   
      
   Father, what is my part in your work?   
      
       
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