Acts 2:1-13 | God's SpiritChikamu

God's Spirit and God's power lead to the act of witnessing. Jesus said it in Acts 1:8. You’ll see it throughout Acts. You see it here at Pentecost. As soon as God’s Spirit comes upon them, they begin to speak in other tongues. And not just for their own benefit. For the benefit of those who had not yet come to know the saving power of Jesus.

Albert Moehler may have said it best. That witnessing is dramatic, universal, and polarizing. When God speaks, people can’t not notice. Some respond. Some sneer. But either way, it does something.

In Acts 2 Jesus’s disciples spoke by the Spirit. People were bewildered. Amazed and perplexed, they asked what it all meant. Don’t be surprised if the same happens to you. Speak the message of Christ by the Spirit of God, and people will take notice as well. Some will respond. Others will sneer. But people will notice.

The danger though, is that in an effort to be winsome (or maybe to avoid ridicule, embarrassment or being different), we can live in such a way that ensures we do nothing that could be mistaken as being drunk at 9 o’clock in the morning. When that is our prime motivator, we put a governor on the accelerator of the Spirit’s power. NT Wright asks this question: “Have we got enough energy, enough spirit-driven life, to make onlookers make any comment at all?” If not, is it because the spirit is simply at work in other ways, or because we have so successfully squelched the spirit, that there is actually nothing happening at all?

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