Good morning. Now to Luke’s version of the great commission: but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. Notice that it says when the Holy Spirit has come upon not within you. Some Pentecostals do not believe that anyone has the Holy Spirit within them until they receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I believe that when Jesus breathed on them and said “receive the Holy Spirit”, that is when the disciples received the Holy Spirit within them. However, they were not empowered by the Holy Spirit until the day of Pentecost. In the great commission in Matthew, Jesus told them to make disciples of all the nations. Here He gives the pattern – first in Jerusalem where you are right now; then you branch out to the areas close to you in Judea and Samaria; and finally you go into all the world. For us that would be like your city; county; state; country; the rest of the world. As we shall see, they got so “comfortable“ in Jerusalem that it took something dramatic to make them branch out. Sometimes God has to make us “uncomfortable“ in order to get us to do what He has told us to do. It’s not that they were doing a bad thing; it’s that they were not doing the entire thing that He told them to do. We cannot point fingers at them; we do the same kind of thing ourselves. Father thank You that You did not leave us powerless, but You sent the baptism in the Holy Spirit to give us all that we need to spread Your word throughout the world.

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