Malachi 1

Discipleship: responding to God's love; respect for who he is

Malachi was the last prophet of the OT. The name means “My Messenger”, and may have been been the surname of Ezra (who lived about the same time) although we don't know. He spoke into the situation after the exile. In Malachi, “Israel” but strictly speaking what was left of the kingdom of Judah (representing all of God's people) who were back in their own land, though under the rule of the Persian empire. The Temple had been rebuilt; the people were struggling to keep going – and they were apparently seeing nothing much from god. So where is God and what has become of his promises? What ever happened to the idea of dedicating the temple, and the Lord coming down so powerfully that the “priests were overcome.” So there's possibly a sense of disappointment, disillusionment and exhaustion present among the people and their priests.

And in that context, something had happened to their worship in this second temple. They brought the sacrifices; they burned incense every morning, they put the “bread of the Presence” out fresh every day, they kept the lamps lit... but it had all become... routine. Dull. Boring. A chore. A drag. And in the end, a matter of legalism: how little they could get away with, and still keep up appearances, still hope to satisfy God that they were his people and he would have to look after them. So bad had it got, that God shames them by saying that the day is coming when all the nations – including these people they detest - will worship him properly.

All pretty sad, really, but it rings bells, doesn't it? A people living kind of “late in time”. We have experienced some difficult and challenging things in our history. We have worked and sacrificed to keep going, and to build what we believe is right for the Lord.... but contrary to expectations, we have not seen much from God in return. So there might well be disappointment, disillusionment and exhaustion present among us as well. And it's a temptation, in a time when we are not seeing God at work in power, to experience a shift of gear: we are no longer expecting God to “turn up”. We are not longer expecting a mighty visitation of God's power. But we no longer live in awe of God's holiness, either. And our worship can me marked with legalism, dullness, boredom. It all seems like a chore and a drag.

So that's the situation that God speaks into through his messenger, Malachi. And he says “I have loved you!”. Plain and simple. Although the word God uses here is not “Chesedh” the Covenant word, none the less the Lord's love still establishes a covenant agreement with his people. Can you hear that cry of heaven today from Jeremiah 31, 3. “I have loved you with an everlasting love and have drawn you with cords of mercy (chesedh)”.

When we were giving things away to kids yesterdy at the Gala, I heard Several Mums or Grannies ask their children “What do you say?” Your Heavenly Father loves you.: “what do you say?” What do you do? How do you respond? Well, God's people didn't respond all that well: “OK Lord, how have you loved us?” In their tiredness and business and disillusionment, they can't really see God's love at work. God says, “I have loved you” and we answer back “How have you?” Our hurts, our disappointments, get in the way and we only see part of the picture.

God answers “Remember Jacob and Esau? They were not only brothers but twins – and I loved Jacob and hated Esau.” (v. 2-3) Now that sounds harsh and arbitrary, like God chooses one and not another, and pity help you if you are not one of the chosen. But that is not what Malachi is saying and it is not what God is saying. Let's look a bit more closely at this:

1. "Love" is about favour and ''Hate" does not imply the level of vehemence we associate with it. It is a deliberately exaggerated way of speaking. Jesus talked talked about his followers "hating their father & mother. He didn't mean us to dislike our parents but to love God so much that by comparison it looks like we hate our parents. In the same way God shows such unique favour to Jacob (Israel) that in comparison he seems to hate Esau. God is emphasising the tremendous favour he has shown to his people.
2. The original Esau had in fact treated God's favour -- his birthright as the older son -- with contempt. He traded it for a bowl of soup! (Gen 25. 29-34} And the tribe that had come from him, "Edom" had always caused trouble for Israel. Most recently, when the Babylonian army had come, and taken the kingdom of Judah off into exile, Edom had happily moved into their land and taken over!

Judah had been in exile for 70 years. Then they got their land back. But in the meantime, Edom had actually been ransacked by the Nabataeans. (Arab people who carved the City of Petra into the rocks). And as Malachi spoke, Edom looked looked unlikely to get into their land any time soon. So God is saying to his people "Listen, I favoured you, and brought you into a special "Covenant"relationship with me. And you can see that worked out in history. Your exile lasted 70 years -- but you're now back in your land. But Esau, Edom, is still suffering for their mistakes". We need to read the facts of our story and see the ways in which God has blessed us. When the prophet Elijah was having a bad time because the wicked queen Jezebel wanted to have him killed, we are told he "saw" and ran for his life (1Kings 19. 3 AV).The enemy loves to make us "see" our problems. We need to look at what he has done for us: to "count our blessings."

So God had loved his people in real, practical ways. He had favoured them; he had entered a covenant with them. He had forgiven them and looked after them. But they weren't seeing that. They had allowed their religion to become routine,and a chore and a bore, They were content to be "Serving God the Leftovers".

The reason he gives law is not because he is a legalist: it's Satan who is the legalist! But God gives law to teach us and assess what is in our hearts. There are four symptoms of heart trouble in this chapter:

1. Contesting God's word. God says “I have loved you.” The people say “How have you?” God says “You show contempt for my name” and the priests say “ How have we?” God says You offered defiled food on my altar” and the people say “How have we?” If our hearts are right, we will live under the authority of God and of his word. That doesn't mean we will never ask questions or always obey what a preacher tells you. Btu yo will have an attitude of submission to God's word.
2. Contempt towards God's person. Our actions are unspoken words. To offer cheap and nasty offerings is to say “God's table is contemptible” and to imply “God's name – his very person – is contemptible.” We need respect instead of contempt. God is concerned about "the Heart of worship!" It is legalism to look only at the outward actions: hats, ties, best china, polished silver & polished choir – & long prayers. God looks at the heart! "Giving God our best" is not meant to be about religious snobbery and showing off. We get too concerned about “dignity” - I guess it would not have been too dignified for the Ark of the Covenant to fall in the mud – but when a guy called Uzzah reached out to steady the Ark, God judged him for it. God is not concerned whether you wear a tie or a hat. But he is concerned about what is going on in your heart! True respect is internal, and is the response of our hearts to being loved! Only when sacrifices represent penitence & faith are they of any value. (V13) 
3. Conventional religion instead of passionate faith. They were "keeping up appearances" while breaking the law. (Lev 22. 22) "Do not offer to the Lord the blind, the injured or the maimed...". You can't cheat God by off-loading all your least profitable animals as sacrifices. God says, “If it's burden, to come and worship, if it only about keeping up appearances, shut the place down.”
4. And all of that came from Coldness instead of love. We get our passion back, we learn to respect who god is, we obey God's word, when we learn to love him.. And we learn to love him when we learn that he has loved us, and that he is “The Lord almighty, whose Name is to be feared among the nations.

© Gilmour Lilly May 2016

John 14. 1-21 Getting to know God

Trinity Sunday

As Jesus headed towards  the Cross, talked about going away, his followers hearts were troubled... 

And in the context of that troubling change, Jesus called god “Father” 12 times, and another four times “my Father” in this reading.  In fact John refers to god as “the Father” 118 times in his Gospel – far more often that any of the other gospels.  He is giving us a hint about what God is like.    

The father
This, a "good good Father", is the nature of God. 

1. As Father, God is the source of life, the creator and ruler of all things.  We often say “well done” to a mum who has just given birth; but in other societies it is the Father who gets the credit! And it is the father who rules over his household and his children. 
2. As Father, God is to be respected.   In Malachi 1. 6 God asks “If I am a father, where is the honour due to me?”   Father, then emphasises the dignity and majesty of god and his right to our worship and obedience.  Jesus lives in submission to his father (verse 10).
3. As Father, God provides for us and looks after us.   Jesus teaches us when we pray, to start by calling god “our Father”  because you trust him to act like a good father (Luke 11.  2-12) .  The father gives what we ask in Jesus name (Jn 15. 16; 16. 23)  
4. As Father, God is a nurturer, who wants us to grow and become strong.  When Guillemot chicks are a few weeks old they have to jump from the ledge where the have hatched, high on the cliff, into the sea. Their wings are not properly formed.

Image:  DickDaniels. Creative Commons SA3

On “Scotland's wild heart” this week, one wee bird couldn't do the jump, and its father flew up, and coaxed it, until it made a wee jump, and landed down a ledge, where other birds began to attack it, until Dad fought them off. That process was repeated until the chick got to the water.  Fathers do that.  The protect their children; they encourage their children to take new steps, to grow up.  God protects us.  God calls us to take risky, sometimes frightening steps.  Sometimes we need to get out of our comfort zone, off the we ledge where we have been safely fed the odd fish by Mum or Dad, and jump in the water where we learn to fish for ourselves.  And we need to jump to get there, even though we cant' fly.  Our nurturing Heavenly Father coaxes us, encourages us, to get there.  I need that from my heavenly father.  

We need to wrestle with this and come to a place of understanding and being reconciled to the father heart of god.    He does have the end of time in his hands (Jn 14. 1);  he does have the authority to command;  but he is reliable, generous, loving and good.  God wants us to be able to come to him in submission; in obedience and respect but in intimacy and absolute confidence and faith. Jim Graham  used to say about this chapter, that kids going to the seaside don't ask if Dad has packed their clothes, remembered his wallet, got their passports.  He is Dad; they trust him.  The only thing they want to ask is “Did you bring the bucket and spade?”

For some of us, the way we understand “Father” is marred by the parenting we have received, from abusive fathers, harsh fathers, unreliable fathers, or absentee fathers.  We need to cuddle up lose to our heavenly father and let him love us.   


The Son
Jesus shows us sonship. He relates to his father. Jesus' sonship was not like ours.  He relates to the Father in a unique way as “his father”.    Jesus is not the Father. Jesus calls both the Temple and Heaven “My father’s house” (v 14, cf Jn 2. 16); and because both of them are “His Father’s House” Jesus has the right to clear people out of the one and prepare places in the other.   He is the only-begotten of the father.  (John 1. 14)  And that claim, to call God not just the Father but “my father”, was for the Jewish leaders, a claim to equality with God, that got Jesus into trouble (John 5. 8) 

So Jesus also shows us the father.  That is what he says: “He who has seen me has seen the father; I in him and him in me....  (v. 9).  There is a close, mysterious unity between Jesus and the Father.   Jesus as the unique son, shares the father’s God-nature.   

HE is the way, the truth and the life....  Jesus is looking towards the cross.  Eh knows his road is going to take him to crucifixion and death.  And eh knows that that road will lead to eternal life in God's  true presence.  So as he looks to the cross, Jesus promises hope for a future with God: “in my Father's house are many rooms, and I am preparing a place there for you...”

The disciples aren't too excited about that.  They don’t want to know about Jesus going away... “We  don't know where you are going so how can we know the way to get there....”   But Jesus replies, that He is the way, the truth and the life.  He travels the road to the cross, dying and rising again; and walking with him we experience dying and rising again: new birth; and that new birth is the way to get into God's presence in a living relationship.

Some of us want to have the truth first to know what God is like, then find the way.  But Jesus is the way first, then the truth and the life.  Yo will never really know God, until you journey along the Way; until you come to him through Jesus!  When we have that new birth, we know what God is like, and we are fully alive.   So Jesus opens the way into God's presence, reveals what God is like; and he and gives us new life.  And you want to get to the Father, to know that you have a place ready for you – get to know Jesus.  You want to be really alive with the life of God, get to know Jesus.  He is the Way the Truth and the life.  

And Jesus, God the son has the authority (verses 12-14) to equip us to take part in his works, to empower us to do the works he has been doing.  The “greater works” refers to the scale  of the works: through us, Jesus intends to go global!  .

And he has the authority  to answer our prayers; to give us whatever we ask for in his name. That means when we pray as his representatives.  Prayer is an awesome privilege and one that we need to take seriously.  When we pray we are being like Jesus: he prays for us to receive the Spirit. 

The Holy Spirit.   
Jesus will ask the Father to give us another comforter or advocate, the same as Jesus.  Greek has two words for other: "Allos" means "another of the same" and "heteros" means another - different.  The word here is "Allos": another of the same.  

An advocate is literally “one called alongside” and the word was used in the Greek world, of the one who stood beside you to speak on your behalf.  Jesus does that for us in heaven; and the Holy Spirit does it from within our lives. He applies in our lives the work of Jesus, to have us declared “not guilty”; he assures us that we are in that sonship place with our heavenly Father (Romans 8. 15f)  The Greek word for adoption to sonship is a term referring to the full legal standing of an adopted male heir in Roman culture.

He empowers us – to do the things Jesus did and greater things.  The Spirit comes because Jesus has gone to the father. He enables us to do the things Jesus did, and to do them with  global scope. 

He enables us to pray, in Jesus' name.    Paul says that the spirit helps us when we don't know how to pray as we ought, groaning inside us with groans too deep for words.(cf Romans 8. 26f)

He teaches us.   Jesus says the Spirit will not speak on his own authority but will constantly be pointing to Jesus (Jn 15. 26; Jn 16. 13-15)

The whole business of going away, will leave the disciples bereft: like orphans   The word refers to a child without a father – but also to a student without a master, a disciple without a teacher.  But in his going away, Jesus is commencing a “round trip" (like the "Flying Scotsman" did last Sunday evening on the "Fife circle"): he is coming to them, in the resurrection; in the coming of the Holy Spirit; and in the clouds at the end of time.  

Image: G Lilly.

And in promising to ask the Father, to send the Spirit, Jesus shows us the relationship between himself, his father, and the Spirit.  Three persons who love each other, dancing together. Three persons, one God.  So if your heart is troubled, the Father loves you; the Son opens the way to the Father, and the Spirit comes to make you God's Son. 

© Gilmour Lilly May 2016

Pentecost: Acts 2.

The Story
So, Jesus is alive, ascended, triumphant, seated at the Father's right hand in Heaven.  He is the Victor.  What he came to do, he has done!  He has taken our sins.  He has defeated Satan, and death.  He has won the battle that means the Kingdom can and will be established.   We know that, from reading the stories of the resurrection appearances of Jesus.  

The next stage, living the Jesus life and spreading the Good news of the Kingdom, He has entrusted to those who have followed him for the past three years.  He has promised, “you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses...” (Acts 1. 8)  So the disciples do what Jesus. tells them to do: they wait.

And now, fifty days after the resurrection, ten days after Jesus was taken away in the clouds, it happens... as they wait and pray, together in an upstairs room somewhere in Jerusalem, they find themselves in the grip of something bigger than themselves, something supernatural... There's a sound like a wind, blowing from heaven, and filling the house they are praying.  The disciples didn't think in English, or even in Greek but in Aramaic or Hebrew.  They heard the sound like a mighty Ruach.  That's the wonderful Hebrew word  that can mean wind, breath and Spirit.  It's the word that is used right back in the beginning, in Genesis 1. 2.  They recognised that the Spirit of God was coming.  And they saw tongues that looked like fire resting on each of them. When God revealed himself to Moses, he “descended n fire” (Ex 19. 18) The they wanted to praise god – at the top of their voices! And the words that came out were not words they had learned;  and as they rushed out into the street, they realised that the people passing by understood: people from all over the Roman empire.  This God experience, the arrival of the promised Holy Spirit, breaks the boundaries, turns Galilean fishermen and Jewish freedom fighters into globe-trotting internationalists!  Amazing!

The point is that God has moved in.  They are breathing a different atmosphere.  There is fire in their souls that they can't keep in.  They are caught up in God's mission; they are seeing the Kingdom of God worked out in their lives. They are making connexions with people they had previously passed by as strangers.  When the spirit comes, eh transforms us.  He gives us a taste of God's Kingdom; he gives us power to engage in mission; he builds community, a sense of connectedness with one another and with people...

But not everyone agrees.  Some in the crowd wonder what it's all about.  Some have an easy answer – they're all drunk!   Always – for some people – this business of God moving in, is too freaky.  It's just weird stuff – evidence of something not quite right in the head... Some of us prefer the predictable.  An hour on Sunday morning; praise, a sermon, Communion.  Serious Bible study, all the bits of the theological jigsaw fitting together.  I was in St John's Primary School on Thursday, talking about the baptist church to the P3 class.  One of the children asked my how I feel when I am preaching: do I feel afraid or nervous?  Answer, “not really...”  because I have been preaching for over 35 years; actually probably over 40 years now.  It's OK.  When I was young my dad used to quote – probably from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbour, though he build his house in the woods the world will make a beaten path to his door.” We believed good preaching attracted people to churches. My role as  a preacher fitted nicely with the expectation that God would send his Spirit, people would see God at work and get saved. I would love life to be that simple.  But life isn't that simple.   What if the Church no longer needs preaching?  I don't like the idea of ministry in a brave new world where the old certainties no longer work.  It's possible to pay lip-service to the Spirit while depending rather heavily on ones training, well-thought-out strategies, and human devices.  It's possible to look down on “simple faith”.  It's possible to dismiss the Spirit's gifts as just too freaky. 

Peter stands up, and answers all of that:  “These men are not drunk as you suppose...it's only 9 a.m. – the pubs aren't even open yet. This is what god promised...”   There is a healthy, wholesome logic to this. 

Point one. Peter quotes Joel, and Joel's message was focused on a plague of locusts that

Image by Christian Kooyman, in PD

destroyed the harvest. Joel warned of an invading army coming like locusts.  But then he says, "afterwards I will pour out my Spirit on all people ... even these foreigners."  There is an "afterwards": grace and renewal, God's kingdom will come and all nations will receive the Spirit.  And as Pentecost was a harvest festival, it's possible that Joel preached his message at Pentecost when the cupboard was bare.  So now Peter on the day of Pentecost, quotes Joel, to people who felt the cupboard was bare, who felt oppressed by an army of foreigners. There is an afterwards: God's grace, the kingdom comes and all nations receive the Spirit – all barriers of nationality, race, class, gender broken down as everyone receives God's gift.  Peter says that "afterwards" has arrived.  And it has arrived, through Jesus.

So, Pentecost was the fulfilment of prophecy.  It was the next stage in the coming of the kingdom; it was and is the experience that lifts us into the work of messiah, of Christ; it is the experience that makes us community and extends that community to be worldwide, and makes us fully human. It is the fulfilment of why you were made. 

Remember, this what God wants for every human being.  It is not weird.  It doesn’t' matter who yo are, or what you've done, or how you've messed up in your life: God made you in his own image; God made you to be spiritually alive, to have his breath in you.  God made you to receive his Spirit.

And  point two.  What Jesus did in his life, death and resurrection, makes that a possibility.   We can be right with God.  We can be new people.  We can receive the Spirit; we can have God living in our lives.  Because Jesus has won the victory of evil; because Jesus. has done what it takes to deal with the rubbish in our lives...This life, being fully human, welcoming God's spirit, is possible because of Jesus.   Peter was speaking in the city where, less than two months earlier, Jesus had been betrayed and executed.  The whole city had been part of that.  “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”  Jesus is central to all this – even if we have sneered and giggled about him, it is to him we must come....

What should we do?   This spirit-filled life is a desirable thing.  It's what we were made for.  It's God's promise to every believer.  It's not just for a special few.  And it’s not weird.  It's not optional, it's part of the package.  What are we to do, if we are not there, today? 

Peter says
1. Repent: “think differently afterwards” to have a change of mind.  Men and women who had shouted “Crucify him” needed to change how the thought about Jesus.  And they needed to change how they thought about the whole of life. 
2. Be baptised – a public, decisive step to declare that you belong to Jesus., and trust him to take the bad stuff out of your life; it's about the forgiveness of sins, knowing that God has dealt with the bad stuff. 
3. Receive.  It's a promise: you shall receive.  But that word “receive” is and active one, that suggests laying hold of something, grabbing it, being determined to have it.  It's not just about sitting waiting for the gift to fall into your lap.  Grasp it.

So how do we enter this Spirit-filled life?  We begin by changing our minds about Jesus.  We need to come to the place where we realise that he is God's son.   We need to determine that he is going to be in charge of our lives.  We publicly declare our commitment to Jesus. and our need of his forgiveness.  If you've never done business with Jesus, you need to start with that change of mind and that public act of trust in him..

If you have put your trust in Jesus. and you feel stuck, on this Holy Spirit question, you need to repent – to change your mind about who's in charge; God isn't interested in giving you an experience for your enjoyment.  You need to accept the forgiveness of your sins. Guilt – feeling unworthy – can make you wonder if God is going to give yo anything at all.  And you need to receive it, to take hold of it.  God wants to give you his Spirit.

© Gilmour Lilly May 2016

Acts 1.1-​11; (Matthew 28. 16-20)

Sunday after Ascension

"Go and make Disciples"

Luke alone describes an Ascension in Bethany (Judea); he is not concerned about the "direction of travel" -- he isn't saying heaven is" up there" -- but stresses the importance of a cutting-off point, a break, a change that prepares the way for the spirit to come. Michael Green observes that all the Gospels look towards a future mission. Matthew finishes his Gospel with an encounter that took place "on a mountain in Galilee"; but he reflects that same sense of a cutting off, the launch of a new stage for Jesus, enthroned as king; and the hand-over of his earthly work to his people.

The starting point: They worshipped but some...

So Jesus meets the Eleven, on a mountain in Galilee. Their response is to worship him. Plain and simple. Our response to the presence of the Risen Jesus, is to worship Him. But among the worshippers were some who were not quite with the rest of them. They were effectively divided between those who were able to worship with unrestrained joy, and those who weren't. They were divided. Not a great place to be starting. But that is the reality: maybe when we get together for worship, not all of us are able to join in with unrestrained joy.

Confusion: Some doubted.

They were unsure: ''in two minds." But is that not where some of us are at? We aren't too sure about things. Maybe not too sure about Jesus. Maybe not too sure about all this new stuff in church . Maybe unsure about the future,. as we all get older and maybe face things that are unpleasant & uncertain. I reckon the disciples were to some extent facing all these areas of doubt and uncertainty.

And there was another layer of confusion. At one point, they were all asking him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” There was confusion due to self-interest. Not a great place to be starting at all. You would expect Jesus to give them a slap! To say "Look -- it's me. You guys who are doubting are just a bunch of losers. To everyone else, all power has been given to me. Go and make disciples". Listen, it doesn't matter how much you have messed up or now messed up you feel. We start as worshippers. And it doesn't matter how messed up we are or feel, Jesus has his plan for us and invites us to be involved in what he is doing in his world!

Jesus speaks. All authority has been given to me.

Post Resurrection he is triumphant over death. Post ascension he is seated at the father's right hand, in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority. And God placed all things under his feet. (Eph 1. 20-22) He is the Victor. He has authority: The "right to act". The "right to command". The "right to expect obedience. "

He has authority to choose, touch, send, who he chooses. He is not limited by our failures. He has authority in the context of our inadequacy! And he exercises that authority "for the church" (Eph 1. 22f)

The Commission: "Go and make disciples"

1. go ... the need to get out of our comfort zone. Movement is one of the signs of life, that differentiates between living things and inanimate objects. Jesus says "Go!" How far are we to go? As far as it takes! God is interested in all nations. The very place where Jesus said this was what Isaiah called Galilee of the Gentiles". (cf Matt 4v15f, lsa 9v2) where Jesus shines his light and meets his followers. The same Greek word (ἐθνῶν) means both "Gentiles" and "Nations" .That means all races, classes and attitudes of people, even the ones we think aren't worth bothering about.. God is not just interested in people like us! And all nations -- all races and classes of people -- have the potential to become "Disciples"

We need to"move"towards the lost: to recover the" go" of mission. We "go as a sending church and a giving church -- in our relationships with Andrew & Mania or Peter & Silje; and as a giving Church to compassion or Food Bank. We can all "go" by

• going out of our way to spend time with family members who don't know Jesus
• going to ask a neighbour in for a cup of tea
• going to the shops, or to school, or work, looking out for someone you can bless
• Going to a club that's not part of Church.

2. and make disciples... Discipleship,not just "conversions" is the outcome of mission. Changing the world through changed lives.' not just getting people to make "decisions".

• Baptising them in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Discipleship begins decisively, with a step of commitment and encounter with The Three-in-One God. This mystery is who God is! The new disciple begins with an encounter with the Triune (implying some knowledge but not necessarily understanding)
• Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Disciple-making is an irreplaceable core task of the and needs to be structured into every church's basic formula. (Alan Hirsch, "the forgotten ways" p 24) The mission principles of Matthew 10 still apply (as does the sermon on the Mount!).

To make disciples means we have to be disciples. Another of these signs of life is reproduction: and when we reproduce we pass on our genes: the stuff that makes us what we are. We can only "Make disciples" -- people who are leaning to live as Jesus lived --if we are people who are leaning to live as Jesus lived.

Jesus promises his presence: I am with you always. ...

Jesus promises that his authoritative Person, will be with them by the Power of the Holy Spirit... cf .Luke 24:49 "I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high"; Acts 1. 4- "wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptised with water, but in a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit...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."

© Gilmour lilly May 2016