Power to Be a Witness

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
—Acts 1:8

I’m always interested in the last words of people. What was the last thing you heard someone say before they died?

Jesus wasn’t dying, but He was leaving. And these were the final words He gave to the disciples before His ascension: “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18–20 NLT).

How would they pull this off from a human standpoint? The apostles were in no way ready for such a task. There were things they still didn’t understand. Their faith was weak. They had failed in their public witness and also in their private faith.

After all, Simon Peter, their acknowledged leader, had openly denied the Lord. So, how could Jesus expect Peter and the other disciples to go into the world and preach the gospel?

They would do it with a power they had never known before, a power to change the world. Jesus told them, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8 NLT).

This was the power to be a witness, the power to share their faith, and the power to do what Jesus had called them to do.

The same power that God poured out on the Day of Pentecost is available to us today. Speaking on Pentecost about the promise of the Holy Spirit, Peter said, “This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away—all who have been called by the Lord our God” (Acts 2:39 NLT).

That includes us.

There are two dangers that we can fall into as we look at these things. The first is to go beyond Scripture or even contradict it. And sadly, much of what some people are doing today in the name of the Holy Spirit has little or nothing to do with Him. Far too often, they attribute their bizarre or aberrant behavior to the Holy Spirit. As a result, we recoil from it.

The other danger, which is just as bad, is to neglect to seek something that Scripture offers us. It’s to say, “Well, because I don’t have it, then it must not be real.”

Yet the Bible has promised every believer a dimension of power to be a witness for Jesus Christ. Notice that Jesus didn’t tell the disciples He would give the Holy Spirit to those who plead with Him or beg Him. We need only to ask Him. And when we don’t receive all that God has for us in our lives, that is called quenching the Spirit.

Have you asked for this power?