Blessing Our Community - Day 50
DAY 50 - Sunday, May 19, 2024
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.
Scripture Insights
Pentecost started as a sit-in: the last recorded words of Jesus were “to stay in the city.” Taking the gospel to the nations required being “clothed with power from on high.” The word “power” in the Old Testament refers to great human strength (think Samson, for instance). The word in the New Testament refers not to human strength but to divine power. The Greek word is dunamis, and from it we get the English words “dynamo” and “dynamite.” Divine power is electric and explosive.
Jesus operated “in the power of the Spirit” (Luke 4:14), and he promised
to clothe us in that same power. It is a power that can do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). It is a resurrection power (Ephesians 3:18–20). Once they received that kind of power, a sit-in was not possible. That power resulted in being sent out to accomplish the impossible! As Samuel Chadwick noted, on the Day of Pentecost, “no one needed to ask if they had received the Holy Ghost. Fire is self-evident. So is power!”
Today’s Prayer
On this Day of Pentecost, we ask for a fresh clothing with your divine power, an “immeasurably more” kind of power, a resurrection power, a power that will be self-evident and that will move us from sitting in to being sent out!
What is the Spirit saying to you today?
—Stan Reeder
Director, USA/Canada Region, Church of the Nazarene
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.
Scripture Insights
Pentecost started as a sit-in: the last recorded words of Jesus were “to stay in the city.” Taking the gospel to the nations required being “clothed with power from on high.” The word “power” in the Old Testament refers to great human strength (think Samson, for instance). The word in the New Testament refers not to human strength but to divine power. The Greek word is dunamis, and from it we get the English words “dynamo” and “dynamite.” Divine power is electric and explosive.
Jesus operated “in the power of the Spirit” (Luke 4:14), and he promised
to clothe us in that same power. It is a power that can do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). It is a resurrection power (Ephesians 3:18–20). Once they received that kind of power, a sit-in was not possible. That power resulted in being sent out to accomplish the impossible! As Samuel Chadwick noted, on the Day of Pentecost, “no one needed to ask if they had received the Holy Ghost. Fire is self-evident. So is power!”
Today’s Prayer
On this Day of Pentecost, we ask for a fresh clothing with your divine power, an “immeasurably more” kind of power, a resurrection power, a power that will be self-evident and that will move us from sitting in to being sent out!
What is the Spirit saying to you today?
—Stan Reeder
Director, USA/Canada Region, Church of the Nazarene
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