Dear Family,
Today is Thursday, April 20, 2023. This is Day 12; Day 5 of week 2 in our Count to Pentecost.
In the Old Covenant Writings where God has recorded the story of ancient Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian bondage, we find a very impressive and wonderful account of God’s power and His demonstration of great love for His people. We find even more extraordinary proof of God’s power and love for His people in the New Testament Writings.
About 2000 years ago, our Savior became the literal Lamb of God, our Passover. He also became the literal Wavesheaf; and, the resurrected Son of God, born now of Spirit, rather than flesh and blood and bone; appeared to His disciples on many occasions for a period of 40 days. First, our resurrected Savior appeared to Mary Magdalene and the “other” Mary at the garden tomb just prior to His ascending and being accepted as the True Wavesheaf by His Father.
Matthew 28:1 In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.
In Mark 16:12 and 14 we find that He also appeared to other disciples.
(12) After that He appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country. (14) Afterward He appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen Him after He was risen.
Sometimes the disciples did not believe Him or recognize Him, and He had to show the scars in His hands and side. Eight days after showing Himself to a group of disciples, He showed Himself to Thomas, a disciple who seemed very skeptical about the eyewitness accounts of the other disciples.
John 20:26-27 (26) And after eight days again His disciples were within, and Thomas with them:
then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said; Peace be unto you. (27) Then saith He to Thomas; Reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side: and be not faithless, but believing.
These early disciples had so much proof of God’s power and love appearing to them; yet, they tended to be skeptical. There is a good reason for this. They did not yet have the Holy Spirit. It is God’s Spirit that gives humans the ability to see and understand spiritual things.
1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Our need for God’s Holy Spirit is a great lesson, demonstrated for us by these early disciples. These accounts have tremendous ability to warn us and instruct us about human “knowing” versus the “knowing” we can have by way of God’s Spirit. We need Pentecost! May God bless us on our journey.
Ben Faulkner, Pastor
©2023, Church of the Sovereign God