He Will Be In You: Are you A Witness? “You shall receive - TopicsExpress

He Will Be In You: Are you A Witness? “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” Acts 1:8 Acts 1:8; 2:1-4 Here’s the final truth to think about in relation to the Holy Spirit power: The Spirit leads us to a powerful proclamation. Verse 8 actually begins with a very strong contrasting word. Why? Because as we saw on Tuesday, the disciples were looking for the kingdom to be established at that moment. They wanted the kingdom to come because Jesus had said that with the kingdom would come power (Matthew 6:13). Jesus told the disciples that He was not going to give them an earthly, political kingdom at that time, but He was going to give them kingdom power, because the power of the kingdom is the Holy Spirit. Notice that Jesus did not simply say, “You are going to witness for Me.” He said, “You shall ‘be’ My witnesses” (my emphasis). The emphasis was upon becoming something, not just doing something. If you get the being right, the doing will follow. One of the ways you know the Holy Spirit is taking over is that you are being Christian when nobody is telling you to be Christian. You are representing Jesus when nobody is telling you to represent Jesus. You are taking a stand for Christ when nobody is telling you to, because you have become His witness. If you can go day in and day out, week in and week out, and never bring up the name of Jesus Christ to anyone; if you can go year in and year out without Jesus Christ radiating out from your life, then your problem is not that the church needs to come up with an evangelistic program. Your problem is that the Holy Spirit does not have you yet, because when the Holy Spirit gets you, a transformation occurs. Look at Peter. When the Holy Spirit got him on the Day of Pentecost, the people thought he and the others were drunk (2:13). Not so, Peter said. Then he explained that it was the outpouring of the Spirit (v.17). Has anyone ever accused you of being so full of the Holy Spirit that they couldn’t explain you behavior in ordinary terms? That’s a charge a lot more of us Christians need to get stuck with a lot more often. You don’t need more power if you have the Holy Spirit. You just need to turn the Spirit loose. Remember the movie “Crocodile Dundee?” Dundee was walking down the street in New York City with his girlfriend when this guy jumps out to rob them. The thief whips out a knife and says, “Give me your money!” The girl screams, “Be careful…he has a knife!” You know by know I like brothers that are cool. This brother is cool. He just smirks and says in his great accent, “That’s not a knife.” Homeboy reaches inside his boot and pulls out the scariest knife you’ve ever seen. He smiles and says, “This is a knife.” That thief’s eyes get big, and he runs off. Why wasn’t Dundee afraid? Because what would normally bring fear, a knife in your face, does not bring fear when you have something bigger and better working on the inside. You have something bigger and better working on the inside of you, the Holy Spirit. Therefore, God does not want you to be intimidated by the world. You have the Spirit’s powerful indwelling presence making you a powerful person accomplishing God’s powerful kingdom program through the powerful proclamation of the Gospel. What you need to do to unleash all this power is to pray, “Holy Spirit, I am yours. Have Your way in me. I will do what You want done the way You want it done. I will seek to glorify Christ and build God’s kingdom. Be real in me because I want all of You. I give You all of me.” Posted by David Coleman of The DC Ministry “Sharing The Gospel.”