5)
For John truly baptized
with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
6)
When they therefore were
come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore
again the kingdom to
7)
And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which
the Father hath put in his own power.
8)
But ye shall receive
power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses
unto me both in
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he
point in this being impressed upon us by the Lord is that we have been
negligent in proclaiming the gospel. This is particularly tragic in light of
the fact that many have come and been changed through the power of God. This,
of course, should leave one with a sense of obligation to the Lord.
Unfortunately, after salvation, the most important thing to us often seems to
be self-preservation.
Testimonies
are things which are fought for. You
see, the devil knows that the focus of this life is in acquiring a testimony so
that the Lord might be glorified. Therefore, he makes sure to "beat us
down" as much as possible. The reason that this is such a problem to us is
that we are looking for some sort of personal
satisfaction after we get saved. But, you see, the point of this life is not to
be self-satisfied, but rather, God-satisfied.
We are saved to work. There is no way
possible that one without the Holy Ghost will be able to understand this, but
what, then, is the excuse of one who already has Him?
The
reality of the redeemed is that we have been brought to the place where we
might understand the greatness of God. Without this understanding and
acceptance, it is unlikely that we will ever be able to have a true testimony.
Accepting Who God is allows us to be delivered from our former mentality.
Exactly what does this involve? All of the ways and all of
the things that the natural man thinks.
It
is ironic that we fight so hard to maintain our way of thinking when God has
designed His plan that we might be abundantly successful. He knows that Man's
mind keeps him from being successful
and therefore, He provides us a way to obtain a new mind. Though time and again, it is proven to us that our way is
a "dead-end," we will fight to hang onto what little we know and all
that we think we know as human beings. This is despite the fact that we humans
who are convinced that we know so much were undeliverable
but for the power of God.
There
is great credit to be given to the Lord for the great deliverance that He has
wrought. This would seem to be obvious and a great understatement, yet the
people who have been redeemed seem to be the last to recognize what has been
done. Therefore, we can have the proper respect for neither the Lord nor His
deeds.
Accepting
the power of God's Spirit is what secures the knowledge within us that we are
saved. Once we have and accept this knowledge, we are free from trying to
justify ourselves, govern ourselves and save
ourselves. To others, we need no longer be what we used to be, but rather, become what we must be, governed by God.
There
is no one who has been touched by God who does not have a testimony. He saves
us that we might have just that. We must allow what the Lord does in our lives
to become so profound that its "story" becomes "just like fire
shut up in (our) bones."