10-28-24-DAILY READING-ENG.

EXPERIENCING THE SPIRIT

                                     POWER FOR A PURPOSE

That's what Pentecost is all about, just as we've seen in Acts: God can take simple men like the disciples and make the world marvel. Some will object, “But that was with men like Peter and John. I don't have their courage.” Courage? Are you talking about these guys before Pentecost or after? Think of Peter. Before Pentecost, he was full of bold talk but no action. He told Jesus, “Though all the others deny you, I'll go with you to prison and to death!” He couldn't have been more wrong. And who was it that prompted Peter's shameful denial of his Lord after Jesus was arrested? A soldier? A powerful religious leader? No, it was only a young servant girl. It's that way with all the great leaders in the Bible: we remember mostly the climax of their lives and what they did after receiving the gift of the Spirit. We think of Gideon as a fearless warrior who led a small group of three hundred volunteers to destroy an army of one hundred twenty thousand.

But when God called him, Gideon was hiding from the enemy for fear they would steal his food. “O my Lord,” he protested, “how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house” (Judges 6:15). Yet God had a purpose to fulfill through his life, and so as Scripture says, “The Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon” (Judges 6:34). We think of David as a powerful king who killed the giant and ruled over Israel. But when God called him, he was a young shepherd boy, so insignificant that nobody thought to have him join his brothers when the prophet Samuel came at God's command to anoint one of them as king.

Yet God had a purpose to fulfill through David's life, so as Scripture says, “The Spirit of the LORD came upon David” (1 Samuel 16:13). We also think of the Old Testament prophets who boldly stood up to evil in their day, fearlessly proclaiming God's truth to those who were caught up in their wealth and power and comfort. But the prophet Amos is typical of what these men were in and of themselves: when Amos was called by God, he was a simple sheep breeder from Tekoa and a migrant laborer who worked picking fruit. Yet God had a purpose to fulfill through the lives of all His prophets. Therefore they could say, as the prophet Micah did, “Truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the LORD” (Micah 3:8).