40 Days?! What Was Jesus Thinking?!?!

Acts 1:1-2 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.

I find it amazing that Jesus only spent 40 days with his disciples before he ascended into heaven. That's it 40 days.

There was so much more the Jesus could have taught his disciples about his future plans for the church.

There was so much the disciples would need to know.

They were totally ill-prepared for what lay ahead of them.

This is border line dereliction of responsibility.

It was merely 40 days ago when the disciples were absolutely dejected as they believed Jesus had failed.

Just 40 days prior, the disciples were in hiding trying to figure out how to make sense of the mess they found themselves in.

Just 40 days prior, they were convinced that they had joined an impostor who only thought he was the King of Israel as Jesus lay dead and buried in a tomb.

40 days is hardly enough time to prepare the disciples for what would be the most important endeavor they would ever engage on...the birthing of the church of Jesus Christ.

Jesus entrusted amazingly important task to guys who just 40 days ago were clueless about his ministry and his kingdom.

How could Jesus be so irresponsible?

How could God possibly expect his disciples to be able to establish his church?

What was Jesus thinking?

40 days!

This is malpractice at its worst...except for one thing...except God knew what no one else knew...that he would be sending the Holy Spirit to empower these bumbling fools to be the architects of the greatest endeavor in the history of the world called the church of Jesus Christ.

You see, the Holy Spirit changes everything.

Whereas Jesus was limited to a particular location, now the Holy Spirit of God would be available to any Christ-follower who opened themselves up to pray and seek his face.

Now God could be everywhere through his Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit was the absolute game changer.

That's why for the early church, prayer was so essential. They really didn't know what they were doing. But they could always pray and ask God's Spirit to guide them and show them what to do because God knew what he was doing.

And the most amazing thing about all this is that the same Holy Spirit is available to you and me 24/7, 365 days a year.

All that we really need to do is to pray and seek God's face and God will show the way!!!

How awesome is that?

How incredible is that?

And how blessed are we that God opens himself to us in such an awesome way.

Thanks be to God!!!!!