- The gospel accounts end with Jesus saying, “Go!” In Acts, Jesus says, “Wait!” What was so important that Jesus told his disciples to stay in Jerusalem? In our day, many Christians are familiar with the Great Commission (Matthew 28: 16-20), but are we aware that Jesus commanded us to wait? Jesus said, in effect, “Don’t go anywhere, don’t do anything until you receive all that I have for you?” Have we meditated on the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives? We can work for God without any special empowerment. We cannot work with him apart from the Holy Spirit.
- Jesus told his followers plainly that there were some things we would not know, especially regarding the times and the seasons of the last days. Yet this very topic is of great interest in the church today: Harold Camping’s foolish predictions are just a symptom, the true illness is a church preoccupied with an exit strategy when our mission is stay and represent. Biblically speaking, we’ve been in the “last days” for 2,000 years. Jesus tells us to focus on the mission, not the culmination of the mission (Acts 1: 7-8). Have we meditated on the wrong subject in our day?
- The angels who were present at the ascension asked a pretty good question: “Why are you looking toward heaven?” (Acts 1:11). It’s a question worth considering. Frequently we are more concerned with heaven than with the Kingdom of God. The breathtaking sacrifice at Calvary purchased the forgiveness of sins and the hope of heaven, but in our generation many followers of Jesus have limited his work and message to heaven and heaven only. We should ask: If the gospel is only about going to heaven, why did Jesus invite us to take up the yoke of discipleship?
I’d love to get the podcast of everything Jesus taught in those 40 days, but it hasn’t shown up on iTunes or Spotify yet. In the meantime, he invites us to work with him just as closely as the first disciples.
This article on after resurrection originally appeared here, and is used by permission.
