Producing The Proof

Journey Into The Promised Land

Acts 1:1–9 (CSB)

PROLOGUE

I wrote the first narrative, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up, after he had given instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After he had suffered, he also presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

THE HOLY SPIRIT PROMISED

While he was with them, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father’s promise. “Which,” he said, “you have heard me speak about; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days.”

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time?”

He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

THE ASCENSION

After he had said this, he was taken up as they were watching, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

At The Point Of Blessing

Jesus didn’t tell His disciples to tarry in Jerusalem until they had one goose bump on top of another! He didn’t say, “Wait until you speak in tongues!” The disciples didn’t even know the manifestation of the gift of tongues would come. They had never heard of it before!

Jesus said: “…ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you…” (Acts 1:8). They were waiting for the power of the Holy Spirit!

Today, people rarely keep going on in their spiritual experience of tarrying before the Lord. They stop at the point of blessing. They are camped there. They are camped at speaking in tongues. They are camped at certain spiritual gifts of the Spirit. They have failed to break past the point of blessing to the point of Jesus’ promise.

What is the point of Jesus’ promise? Power! He does not say: “You shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you and that power will enable you to just speak in other tongues or the prayer language of the Holy Spirit.” He says, “That power will enable you to be witnesses unto Me.”

I can show you millions of people who are blessed. I can show you millions of people who can go out and talk about Jesus Christ. I can show you millions of people who can speak in tongues or who experience great joy as part of their worship. Yet I have not found many people to whom I can point and say, “I can see in that person the ability called the power, the enduement of the Holy Ghost, to give witness and evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ” — knowing that to give evidence of Jesus Christ is to produce the proof that He is the resurrected Lord. Perhaps that is why half the world today has never yet heard about Jesus Christ.

I do not like to be negative, but you cannot produce this ingredient called power that is missing from our churches and experience today without this negative input. You must have negative input before you can produce power. Electricians tell me that in order to produce electrical power to turn on a light to dispel darkness there must be two wires. One is a positive wire and the other is a negative wire. You must take the positive wire and the negative wire, strip down the insulation from them and hook them up on each side of a switch or receptacle. You must strip the insulation from the wires or it will not work.

This stripping down process is not easy, but it is necessary to produce power. If you hook up only the positive wire and go to the switch, you do not get any power. You get no electrical current. There is no light to dispel the darkness. You must put the negative and the positive together. When you do that and then flip the switch, the light comes on.

Make this declaration:

I am going through the stripping process that is necessary to produce power. The light is dispelling spiritual darkness.

*Adapted from MCWE email – Journey Into The Promised Land by Morris Cerullo

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