Acts 1:8“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth.”
To bear witness: testify, give evidence, confirm, support, be evidence of, bear out, speak for, display, manifest, declare
To witness: see, observe, notice, view, watch, experience
Reflections
There is no reason to think that this verse applies only to the first disciples! Throughout the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit comes on many people and all have the experience of being filled with power to witness! My own experience is that the Spirit came on me and I received a greater level of confidence in sharing my faith.
If you are a Christian who has been filled with the Spirit then you are a Spirit empowered witness of Christ. God has chosen you to speak about His Son! The heavens might display and declare God’s majesty, but it is people who speak about His Son. Not merely ‘people’ but you and your friends; the Church. No one else in all of society can be a witness like we can as the Church; like I can as a Spirit empowered individual, like you can as a Spirit saturated believer!
You are a witness, which means, firstly, that you've seen something. Someone can only witness/tell about that they know/have seen/about what they've, heard and lived out. You may not have been standing there when Jesus was crucified; you may not have placed your fingers on the nail marks on His hands; you may not have eaten with Him; spoke to Him; travelled with Him – but you are still a witness! You are a witness to the transforming, life-changing power of His love and forgiveness. You are a witness to the joy and peace that comes from knowing His presence in your life; a witness to change, and save those around you; to set people free from addiction and slavery to sin.
You are also ‘Spirit-empowered’. His spirit lives in you, has strengthened you and filled you with a new power; a power to witness, and to declare boldly, what you have seen, heard and experienced!
This is the promise that you can live in – that you need not fear or shrink back, since you have the Spirit of power inside of you.
So here are two great truths for you read out allowed:
1. My life is significant. I am a Spirit-empowered witness for the Son of God; the most glorious person in the universe.
2. I have received the Spirit and have power to witness based on God’s strength and power; not simply on my levels of energy or enthusiasm. There should be, and is, a decreasing level of fear and timidity in my life as I allow the Spirit of God to change me and fill more areas of my life.
This week live with this verse and these truths resonating in you, do not shrink back, stand, speak, witness.
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