Acts 1:8 "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."   When Christ was about to leave, and return to heaven, He left his disciples and us, with a challenge to be His witnesses not only at home but also to the very ends of the earth. A few days earlier; on the mountain in Galilee, He had left the Great Commission: "ALL authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. GO therefore and make disciplines of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to OBESERVE ALL things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am ALWAYS WITH you, even to the end of the age." Matthew 28:18-20. His commission to us was explicit; we ARE TO make disciples by LEADING people to Christ. We are to mark these new disciples through baptism. And then we are to mature them by "teaching them to observe" ALL those things Christ commanded.   "But YOU shall, be witnesses to Me". This challenge to take the gospel to the world is on Jesus GIVES to US ALL... NONE of us are exempt form the basic element of Christian living; that is, TO SHARE THE GOOD NEWS.. You shall receive what? POWER! This is a great need of believers today. We ALL need POWER to live the Christian life.  Today we pride ourselves on our influence.  We seek to influence the decaying culture around us in various ways.  But the early church did not even have enough influeance to keep their leader Simon Peter out of prison. They were virtually void of influence with the civil and legal authorities. But the more IMPORTANT NEWS IS, they had ENOUGH POWER to PRAY him out of prison!   Jesus used a word for POWER form which we get our word DYNAMITE.  We need this power to be His witnesses. The book of Acts is the story of a group of men and woman just like you and me who,despite all the bigotry and bias of the Roman ruled world, WENT OUT from a little upper room to tell the story of the publicly executed Jew. They did so much  with so little. How?  They had a DYNAMITE nature about them. They had RECEIVED POWER from on high. When did this power come upon the group of believers? When the Holy Spirit came upon them. There is NO such thing as a Christian without power. When you RECEIVE Christ, you have the Holy Spirit. He takes up residency in you. Thus, YOU HAVE POWER.  The Holy Spirit enables us to be witnesses. This is the very reason why we have power, to be His witnesses. There is NO such things as a Christian who is not a witness.  If we are saved, we HAVE CHRIST. If we have Christ, we have the HOLY SPIRIT. If we have the Holy Spirit, we have POWER. And if we have power, we WILL BE Jesus' WITNESSES.....the Lord did NOT call any of us to be a judge sitting in condemnation of others around us. He did not call us to be the prosecution attorney, pointing our fingers of accusations at others. He called us to simple TELL others what we have seen and heard from first hand experience. That is, to be His witnesses. We are not recruiters trying to get people to join our club. We are not salesman trying to persuade others to buy our products. We are simply to be Jesus' witnesses.  In thirty short years, those early belivers fuflied Acts 1:8. How? They were EMPOWERED by the Holy Spirit and, with singleness of PURPOSE, WITNESSED His saving grace in Jerusalem in Judea and Samaria. Acts 9-12 and to the end of their world Acts 13-28. Today as you meditate on the AWESOME POWER that RESIDES WITHIN EACH OF US, Who has placed our FAITH and TRUST IN Jesus Christ ALONE. It would do us WELL to also memorize the GREAT COMMISSION. Matthew 28:19-20  then get back to basics of BEING Jesus' WITNESSES by making DISCIPLES, marking them by baptism and TEACHING them to OBSERVE ALL He has commanded.

for it is WITH God ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE Matthew 19:26 Father God, guide me today to DO ALL things that will bring GLORY AND HONOR TO YOU. AMEN 

Amen