Pastor Barry's  "Chapter & Verse"  2024  Day 294

October 18;      Acts 1:4;       90/260;      ‘Don’t Depart, Wait’

Acts 1:4 And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, "which," He said, "you have heard from Me;

The Lord Jesus ministered as a Man anointed by the Holy Spirit.  The miracles He performed were brought about by the Holy Spirit’s power.  Jesus did no miracles until He was water baptized by John the Baptist and the Holy Spirit came upon Him.  Our Lord in John 17:18, tells us that as the Father sent Him into the world, He sends us.  It stands to reason that if He did not minister supernaturally until He was empowered by the Holy Spirit that neither can we.  This is the command that the Lord Jesus is giving His disciples and all of those in the upper room.  Verse 5 teaches what they were to wait for, the baptism in the Holy Spirit.  The word baptism means to immerse or place into.  When those in the upper room were baptized in the Holy Spirit, shortly after Jesus told them this, they were immersed in the power of the Holy Spirit.  They were placed into a position of power to minister when the Spirit came upon them.  This was not a suggestion of Jesus, it was a command.  Those who would continue His work needed that power to teach and preach with authority and to heal those who were sick.  If they needed that power then, we need that power now.  The initial evidence that a Christian is baptized in the Holy Spirit is praying in tongues. The power that comes upon a believer when they are baptized in the Holy Spirit is so vital for a believer to flow in to set others free.  This is the reason satan does everything he can to discredit the baptism in the Holy Spirit.  Spirit filled Christians do the most damage to the kingdom of darkness.  Because speaking in tongues is supernatural the devil use our intellect to question this gift.  Don’t let him, trust God, set them free.