How Jesus Instructed His Disciples Through The Empowering Spirit

How Jesus Instructed The Apostles Through the Empowering Spirit

Acts 1:1-5

Illustration:William A. Ward has said, "The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

Progress Magazine, December 23, 1992.

1. Jesus instructed His apostles through the Holy Spirit because He wanted them to continue the ministry that He began.

Our Lord did not expect His disciples to invent their own agendas. Christ’s ministry showed people how to have a great influence through the demonstration of Godly characteristics in every good work, relationship and teaching.

Everything Christ did became an inspiration for all sincere hearted people to follow His example.

Ask the Lord to help you follow Christ’s example of service, love and multiplication ministries through the Spirit’s empowering guidance.

2. Jesus knew that the disciples would need the empowering of the Holy Spirit if they were to continue His ministry of miraculous works, healing and teaching of God’s kingdom and righteousness.

Without the empowering of the Spirit of God the disciples would be tempted to just rely on their memories and their own strength to accomplish God’s will.

Our Lord wanted the disciples to realize that only through the Spirit’s leading could they work the works of God.

Ask the Lord to help you trust and obey the Spirit’s directing in all that you do, say and become.

3. Jesus taught the disciples that without the Spirit’s empowering no one could be successfully evangelized or discipled.

The Lord Jesus instructed the disciples that without the Spirit’s conviction and revelation, no person could truly know and trust the living God in whom we live and move and have our being.

Christ knew that growing in all aspects into godliness would only be possible through the Spirit’s transforming enablement.

Ask the Lord to help you avoid trying to do evangelism or disciple making ministries without the Spirit’s convicting, revealing and transforming enablement.

4. Jesus wanted the disciples to know that their teaching ministries would flow from what they knew, how they lived and their heart felt motivations.

Our Lord wanted the disciples to teach in a way that was in full harmony with His cognitive, behavioral and affective characteristics.

Only through the empowering of the Spirit can a person fully embody Christ’s thoughts, behaviors and motivations.

Ask the Lord to help you teach in a way that conforms to Christ’s ideal teaching, actions and intentions.

5. Jesus encouraged the apostles to wait on the Holy Spirit for their deliverance from the temptations of the worries, riches, pleasures, troubles and persecutions of this life.

Our Lord knew that the disciples would be greatly tempted to let the seed of the Word of God get choked out by competing influences.

Only through the Holy Spirit’s deliverance, protection and, preserving work is anyone able to overcome temptations.

Ask the Lord to help you to be delivered from all kinds of personal, circumstantial and relational influences.

6. Jesus exhorted the apostles to rely on the Holy Spirit’s directives in teaching their followers how to abide in Christ the vine for all of their fruit bearing ministries.

Our Lord knew that the apostles might be tempted to teach their followers more about their cultural or experiential ministry perspectives than spiritual perceptions.

Only through the instructing ministry of the Holy Spirit will our followers learn to interpret God’s word in a way that they can maximize their contribution to the cause of Christ.

Ask the Lord to help you exhort your followers to rely on the Spirit’s directives to help them make the best observations, interpretations, correlations, applications, evaluations and communications from the Bible

7. Jesus knew that God’s promises could be appropriated only through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Our Lord did not want the disciples to think that the promises of God could be appropriated without the Spirit’s inner working in the hearts of believers. Christ assured the apostles that all the Father had promised would be fulfilled to them if they would learn to be controlled by the Spirit’s filling and anointing.

Ask the Lord to use the Spirit to bring to mind and fulfill all of the precious promises that are yours in Christ. (2 Pet. 1:3-8)

8. Jesus knew that the apostles could not endure the suffering involved with the ministry without the Spirit’s comfort, grace and encouragement.

Our Lord knew that the Spirit’s medicinal grace, love and inspiration would be given just at the right time and in the healthiest ways.

Only the Spirit of God enables us to rise above the sufferings we are called to bear in carrying out all of God’s will.

Ask the Lord to help you praise and thank our heavenly Father for the way that He uses the Spirit to comfort, encourage and elevate you above any problem.