Why Wait?
Scripture: Acts 1:2-5
"2 until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving his chosen apostles further instructions through the Holy Spirit. 3 During the forty days after his crucifixion, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God.
4 Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, "Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. 5 John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."
Observations:
Before Jesus ascended into heaven once and for all, he delivered his final instructions to His disciples who would were about to undertake the most important task in history. The job was so great that there was no way this small group of men would ever be able to accomplish this enormous task of telling the entire world about Jesus. But God already knew this and for that very reason planned to give them His Spirit to enable them. However, His specific instructions were to go and wait UNTIL. Jesus never said anything about how long this process was going to take. He left it completely open ended. For all they knew, It could be 10 days or 10 years before God would act on their behalf. It's scary to wonder why might have happened if they had tried to rush God's timing and relied more on their own abilities to strategize and plan for how all 11 of them could get this thing of the ground and start telling others about Christ. But had they decided to stop waiting or start trying to do anything else but wait like they were told, it would have short circuited God's perfect timing that brought thousands of people to just the right place at just the right time. All along it wasn't their gift or abilities that made the difference, but rather their obedience to the process- a commitment to wait on God UNTIL.
Application:
We typically have a hard time sitting still and doing nothing because honestly, we all hate waiting on anyone or anything for any reason. Too many times that attitude bleeds over into our faith when we start getting impatient with God because He's not working fast enough for us. But God rarely tells us when He's going to come through. More times than not he only tells us in His Word that He's going to come through and asks us to simply wait for His perfecting timing. The danger though is that in ghe waiting we often feel like God has forgotten us and we're tempted to look for shortcuts. But there are no shortcuts to obedience. Our job is not "helping" God do His job but to stay faithful and obedient to God's instructions UNTIL. (philippians 1:6).
Prayer:
Father, help us not to get in a hurry or try to rush Your plans for our lives. Keep us in step with Your Spirit as we seek to faithfully obey Your Word. We commit to wait for Your perfect timing UNTIL. Amen.
Daily Bible Reading Plan
"2 until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving his chosen apostles further instructions through the Holy Spirit. 3 During the forty days after his crucifixion, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God.
4 Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, "Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. 5 John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."
Observations:
Before Jesus ascended into heaven once and for all, he delivered his final instructions to His disciples who would were about to undertake the most important task in history. The job was so great that there was no way this small group of men would ever be able to accomplish this enormous task of telling the entire world about Jesus. But God already knew this and for that very reason planned to give them His Spirit to enable them. However, His specific instructions were to go and wait UNTIL. Jesus never said anything about how long this process was going to take. He left it completely open ended. For all they knew, It could be 10 days or 10 years before God would act on their behalf. It's scary to wonder why might have happened if they had tried to rush God's timing and relied more on their own abilities to strategize and plan for how all 11 of them could get this thing of the ground and start telling others about Christ. But had they decided to stop waiting or start trying to do anything else but wait like they were told, it would have short circuited God's perfect timing that brought thousands of people to just the right place at just the right time. All along it wasn't their gift or abilities that made the difference, but rather their obedience to the process- a commitment to wait on God UNTIL.
Application:
We typically have a hard time sitting still and doing nothing because honestly, we all hate waiting on anyone or anything for any reason. Too many times that attitude bleeds over into our faith when we start getting impatient with God because He's not working fast enough for us. But God rarely tells us when He's going to come through. More times than not he only tells us in His Word that He's going to come through and asks us to simply wait for His perfecting timing. The danger though is that in ghe waiting we often feel like God has forgotten us and we're tempted to look for shortcuts. But there are no shortcuts to obedience. Our job is not "helping" God do His job but to stay faithful and obedient to God's instructions UNTIL. (philippians 1:6).
Prayer:
Father, help us not to get in a hurry or try to rush Your plans for our lives. Keep us in step with Your Spirit as we seek to faithfully obey Your Word. We commit to wait for Your perfect timing UNTIL. Amen.
Daily Bible Reading Plan
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