Friday 21st
Acts 1:6-11
NIV (v8) – ‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”’
ESV (v8) – ‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”’
This Sunday coming, will be what we call Whit Sunday or Pentecost, the day in the Church calendar in which we celebrate the arrival of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church 2000 years ago in Jerusalem.
Jesus had declared that he would build his Church and that the gates of Hell would not prevail against it. Since the Day of Pentecost, Hell has sought to do its best to wipe out the Church, but two thousand years later she is healthy and still growing as souls are added each day around the world.
In Acts 1 we see that Jesus had informed the disciples that after they had received the power of the Holy Spirit they would be witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. And the spread began immediately as on that first momentous day, three thousand souls were saved and soon they began to be dispersed taking the gospel with them.
It is said that the gospel first came to the shores of the United Kingdom in the first century as it was introduced as another religion among many religions in what then was a pagan Britain, those who followed Christianity though were persecuted until Constantine saw the use of one religion as a means of unifying the empire, so Christianity became permitted. It was later through the endeavour of Augustine and others that Christianity became more popular.
The UK has gone through periods of great awakenings where revival has taken place, and many have been added to the Church, but what I want to focus on in this devotion is the missionary endeavours that have gone from the shores of this relatively small island that have caused a greater harvest to take place in so many different parts of the world.
We need to be mission minded, not only concerned for the salvation of souls on our own doorstep, but further afield within the United Kingdom and further afield around the nations of the world. The restrictions of the pandemic may have hindered our focus on mission, but something I want us as a local fellowship to be focused on in the future is the need for us to continue to cooperate with those who are involved in mission so that the good news of the gospel may continue to be shared and the Church that commenced being built on that first Day of Pentecost may continue to be built.
We cannot all go further afield, but we can give, and we can pray, and in doing so others can be sent and the gospel shared.
It is important that we consider giving out of our resources for mission beside that which we set aside as a tithe and as offering to the local Church, it is not a taking of a tenth and divvying it up into sections, the tenth is the tithe, which is for the work and ministry in the local Church, and our offerings and giving for mission should be above and beyond. Remembering that God loves a cheerful giver, we give to further the work of the gospel, we give that the kingdom of God might be extended, we give because we want above all that God will be glorified around the nations of the world. We give because God has given to us, we give because we want to be honourable in the use of the resources that God has entrusted to us.
I have not focused so much on Pentecost, that will be our theme as I continue this Sunday on the work of the Holy Spirit.