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Jesus fulfilled all of the jots and tittles of prophecy, showing that God is the Promise Maker is God the Promise Keeper.
We need to be careful of overlooking details we think might be insignificant because we can easily think that our small lives are somehow insignificant. They are not! As Tom Kaastra reminded us last week, we are here on purpose and for a purpose; our lives are eternally significant.
Immediately after His resurrection, the followers of Jesus struggled to wrap their minds around what they had just experienced. Just before His ascension, Jesus explained to them both what had happened already, and what was about to happen (Luke 24:44-49).
Jesus said He had already fulfilled the promised about His crucifixion and resurrection. Luke writes that Jesus “opened their minds so they could understand” (v. 45).
Notice two important things:
- The Spirit of Jesus—the Holy Spirit—opens minds
- He opens minds to grasp the truth in Scripture
Jesus also says that we are still fulfilling the “what is written” (v. 46) in the the proclamation of the death and resurrection of Jesus. We are fulfilling the prophecy that says the message of Jesus will be preached everywhere to all peoples, so that they also can receive the forgiveness Jesus paid for and repent of their Godless ways.
Who opens minds? The Holy Spirit.
What does the Spirit use as a catalyst to open minds? Our witness.
Who empowers our witness? The same Holy Spirit (see Luke 24:47-49; Acts 1:4-8).
A witness is a truth-teller, who tells their firsthand story and who amplifies their verbal testimony by their Christ-honoring lifestyle. Jesus used two phrases to remind us that witnessing is not something we do, but it is who we are:
- you ARE witnesses (Luke 24:48)
- you will BE My witnesses (Acts 1:8)
Holy Spirit-baptized Christians are empowered to take Jesus to every street. God has strategically and purposefully placed us on our “streets” to proclaim our witness. From Easy Street to Skid Row, and everywhere in between, we are to fulfill the prophecy of proclaiming this good news to all nations (see 1 Corinthians 9:20-22).
The Holy Spirit opens minds closed to God. He uses our witness as the catalyst for people to repent from their sin and receive the forgiveness that Jesus made available.
So don’t stop at just receiving Jesus as your Lord and Savior, but also receive the empowering gift He promised—the baptism in the Holy Spirit!
Please follow along with all of the messages in this series called Takin’ Him to the streets by clicking here.
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Craig T. Owens 