Hello, I want to welcome you to my blog. This is truly a new venture and I am truly honored to share my thoughts…
A few weeks ago, I spoke on the topic “The Wait Mode” Luke 24:44-53; Acts 1:1-4
Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, “DO NOT LEAVE Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. Acts 1:4 NLT
I have the wonderful opportunity to speak into the lives of young adults every week. Quite frankly young adults are in a unique, vicarious, and ackward position in life. If fact, many young adults have more dreams than they have self- discipline, more creativity than capital and more ambition than experience. Being in a place where you have to wait for approval, connections, and even opportunities to open up can be quite difficult and can create inner turmoil, FRUST (frustration), and ultimately immature actions with costly consequences. In this position, young adults can become submerged with sadness, bitterness, anger, and depression.
This could also have been disposition of the disciples that have lost their leader. They are frustrated, sad, and truly uncertain about the future. Before the crucufixion the disciples scattered like fugitives. After the resurrection of Jesus, the disciples somehow have magnetically, synergistically found themselves back in the upper room with Jesus. How do you handle transition? Change?
“….he was taken up to heaven after giving his chosen apostles further instructions through the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:2NLT) As the disciples waited in the upper room, Jesus spent nearly 40 days sharing with the disciples about things that were to come in the future. Jesus still feels the need to spend time with the disiples before they embark on spreading the Gospel abroad. The disciples are about to take this little ministry of 12 WORLDWIDE!!!! THEY ARE ABOUT TO MAKE HISTORY!!!!! Before we step into different levels of our walk with God, careers, goals, and entrepreneurial ventures the Holy Spirit wants us to spend sometime with Him.
Jesus said, “Do Not Leave.” Has the Holy Spirit ever told you not to leave? Told you to stay still? Contrain yourself? Sit your hips down?! Park it mister?! Don’t you move?! However, many young adults prematurely sojourn because of pride, ego, frustration, or even peer pressure. Sometimes the most difficult thing is not hearing but following through with what you’ve heard. This can potentially be dangerous! Do Not Leave!
Think about it…What if the disciples never waited to recieve the Holy Spirit? What would the church have been like? They would have all knowledge but no power to execute the knowledge and influence millions to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. They would have had a great blueprint of ministry but not be empowered to move through the caos of various cultures to witness, heal the sick, and raise the dead.
WAIT means to serve; remain in a ready position or with expectation. Waiting can be really uncomfortable, tedious, and irritable. Always remember that before God changes your POSITION, He changes your DISPOSITION..
Waiting takes discipline. Period. Our mental images of discipline can be limited to discipline as punishment. Yet it is my hope that we will reimagine discipline as preparation.God is not in heaven creating ways to make your lives horrible, but rather desires to teach us valuable life lessons that will transform us into His image.
Preparation is interwoven with the process. There is no way to obtain the promise and ignore the process. So if a promise speaks of a dream yet to be obtained, then in order to obtain the promise one must become disciplined to wait for it…Dreams with Discipline become realities…Dreams without Discipline become nightmares.
In Jim Collins book, “Good to Great”, Collins suggested, “Disciplined people have disciplined thoughts, which produce disciplined action.” WOW! How would you prepare if you knew you were about to make history?
Disciples are not born but disciples are made. And it takes time and much effort. Discpline logged inside of the process is what molds us into disciples. So in this season called “The Wait Mode” these are some tips to becoming a true disciple of Jesus Christ:
- Adopt God ‘s objective in scripture as your objective in life (Matt 6:33
- Pay the price to have the will of God fulfilled in your life (2Timothy 2:3-10)
- Love the Word of God (Jeremiah 15:16)
- Gain and possess a servant’s heart (Matt. 20:26-28)
- Place no confidence in the flesh (Phil.3:3)
- Love others as you love yourself (Mark 12:30-31)
- Refuse to be trapped in bitterness (Heb. 12:15)
- Learn your greatest weakness (1 Cor. 9:24-27)
Have a great day! The Wait Mode!
travis
The Witness 