The power of the Spirit

 
         In the first chapter of Acts, Luke has some important things to say about the 40 day period between the resurrection and the ascension. During this time Jesus gave his disciples “many convincing proofs that he was alive” (v. 3). I ask myself, “Why would it be necessary to provide ‘many proofs?’” They knew him well: They were with him on that fatal Friday, he suddenly appeared to them in a locked room a few days after his resurrection, he even asked Thomas to touch his wounds. Wouldn’t that be enough? I don’t know for sure, but I can still understand their hesitancy. After all, a person doesn’t usually show up three days after being killed and properly buried, complete with a stone rolled across the door of the tomb.
         The disciples’ need for “convincing proofs” was that very shortly they would be preaching, “Christ has risen!” to crowds throughout the land. Many would believe, but not the religious authorities. They would do everything necessary to stop this new heresy in its tracks. It certainly wasn’t an atmosphere conducive for the kind of change that the gospel would bring.
         The answer to the apostles’ problem was the coming of the Spirit as a source of power. Jesus told his disciples to “wait for the gift the Father had promised” (v. 4), and when the Spirit comes they would receive “power” (v. 9). This coming of the Spirit was exactly what Jesus was emphasizing when he was “taken up to heaven before their very eyes.” He said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you (v. 8). As we will be watching in our journey through Acts, the power of the Holy Spirit was essential for the presentation and effective spread of the faith. Ever since that moment, the growth of the church has depended upon the presence and work of the Holy Spirit.
​         A friend of mine once described the Spirit as “the shy member of the trinity,” but subsequent history indicates that the Spirit has been anything but shy!  From the very beginning, it has been the Spirit that has been at the heart of the growth of the church. It is the presence of the Spirit that makes it possible for people to turn in faith to Christ. Without the Spirit there never could have been a New Testament church, to say nothing of the remarkable spread of the Christian faith throughout the world. Spiritual activity of any sort requires the presence of the Spirit. Secular power creates secular things, but only the Spirit can create a spiritual result. It was at that critical point that the “age of the Spirit” began. And he is with us today, bringing power for the proclamation of the gospel.