With a Subtitle: When the unlikely say yes to the Holy Spirit, He shocks the nations through them.

A brief Excerpt: Uneducated Galileans speaking the languages of the known world — and the only explanation was that they had made themselves available to the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit lives in us.

The Author is: Rich Holt

Scripture

Our verse for today comes from Acts 2:7, “Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, ‘Look, are not all these who speak Galileans?'”

Background

When I was a youngster, it was quite common to hear people tell Polack jokes. The humor was based on the assumption that the Polish people were imbeciles. An example might be, “How do you stop a Polish army on horseback? Turn off the carousel.” Another one goes, “Did you hear about the tragedy in Poland? In their largest shopping mall, there was a terrible power outage. People were stuck on the escalators for four hours.” One last one references the frigid winter conditions of Poland: “Did you hear about the Polish family that froze to death outside a theater? They were waiting to see the movie “Closed For The Winter.” Now, it’s not difficult to see why these ethnic jokes no longer have the same appeal and acceptance as they might have several decades ago. It’s tough to justify belittling an entire nation of people, pigeonholing them to be the morons of the planet. I mean, Copernicus, Chopin, and Madam Curie were all Polish. I don’t think the Galileans of the first century had quite the stereotype as the modern day Poles who bore the brunt of so many jokes, but they certainly were not known for their sophistication or education, especially in and around Jerusalem.

Application

But here they were, dozens of them amidst the multitude of travelers and visitors, speaking in languages known to the Parthians and the Medes and the Elamites and those from Egypt and beyond, with no apparent explanation as to how. But scripture tells us that as they were waiting together, they were filled by the Holy Spirit and spoke as He gave them utterance. They made themselves available and were obedient to the Lord, and God used that to shock “devout men from every nation under heaven.” We followers of Jesus have the same Spirit, but we can talk ourselves out of being available. The activity may not sound appealing, or the timing may be inconvenient, or whatever keeps us from going or doing. Availability and obedience started the church of Jesus, and they’re what will carry it forward. Will you be a part of shocking a nation?

Charge

As we seek Him today, make a commitment to be available and obedient, and see how God shows up.