"You will receive Power"

Read through the following verses and you'll soon see what Welch is talking about in this chapter.  Luke 24:49, John 20:22, Acts 2:1-4

In the last chapter we were reminded to start thinking differently as a child of God in His Kingdom, to recognize that God has honoured us through His Son Jesus Christ and we had to practice saying Thank You LORD.  Now Welch directs us also to get in the habit of saying "Help" as often as possible.

Jesus has now risen from the dead and Acts 1 describes how He and His disciples are now talking about the Holy Spirit.  Jesus would soon ascend into heaven but He would not leave His people alone.  The Holy Spirit would come (Acts 2:4-5,8) and life would be forever changed because of the Power which would come upon us!!

We need Power!!  As the shamed we had none, but we also need Power for God's Word to reach into our hearts, to help us in our unbelief, to help us love and obey Him!

God has made promises to His unfaithful people right from the beginning and the promise of the Holy Spirit is one of those promises.  God's promises are always true and He makes them with His eyes wide open.  He knows we will be unfaithful or fearful.  The thing about the Bible and God is that His story is about HIS faithfulness and OUR unfaithfulness.  No way can anyone of us think God's Word is not for us.  God is there for the unworthy (Ezek 36:25-27). (p. 229)

The Spirit comes with many names --> Water of Life or Cleansing Water.  Welch describes the heart of shame as the absence of relationships, of being known, personal isolation which leads to the power of what the Holy Spirit does.  It cleanses us so that the Holy Spirit can live in us.  There are two kinds of cleansing. One that happens once and lasts a lifetime (Christ's payment for our sins on the cross) and the other is the foot washing we need every day (confession and repentance from our daily sins).

Cleansing reaches deep beneath our skins and that's what shame needs.  Cleansing is a transformation and that is exactly what the Spirit does.  It is God's work and not ours (Isaiah 1:18).  It is a Gift from God, the Gift of Himself.  We don't deserve it and have nothing to give in return, and that might make us feel embarrassed, unworthy but remember this is PRIDE, one of satan's lies talking.  We are more concerned about ourselves than we are grateful for the mercy and grace of the other person.  Welch encourages us to take our eyes off ourselves and simply say Thank You LORD. (p. 231)

Jesus talked a lot about the "Water of Life", the Holy Spirit, whenever He talked about cleansing and water (John 3:5, John 4, John 7).  Over and over God gives us gifts, more and more, cleansing us, giving us the Holy Spirit to live in us, but then the Holy Spirit starts to overflow, first maybe as a trickle but soon it will be a gusher.  We are no longer the beggars but the givers (p. 233).

But there is more.  We are now the TEMPLE OF GOD!  God never intended to make a lifeless building His place to live.  God always wanted to make us His living temples just as Jesus was THE living temple.  Everything about the OT temple pointed to Jesus and now that we are also joined to Christ, and are His living temples we need to put this reality into words.  Talk about them, talk about what you are learning, you'll notice that it gets easier the more you do it.

We who were once common and unclean have now become Holy and Clean through the Holy Spirit.  We don't contaminate anyone anymore but can actually touch people and sanctify them.  When someone loves us, they usually also love the ones we care about and that is how we can touch other people's lives to teach them about the one we love --> Jesus Christ.  Please read 1 Corinthians 7:13-14.  So now we can see we have a purpose to go out and teach others throughout our lives.  Doesn't necessarily mean we have to teach with words but we can do it through our lives of love (1 John 3:23-24).  When God opens the doors give the reason for the hope that you now have!!