Dave's Diary

Daily Readings: Luke 24 and Psalm 64

⁵¹ While He was blessing them, He left them and was taken up into heaven. ⁵² Then they worshipped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. ⁵³ And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.

It’s Ascension Day, and we join the global church in celebrating that Jesus departed from the earth in His resurrection body, to return to the Father’s right hand in heaven. When the disciples witnessed Jesus rising from the earth and being hidden from their sight by the cloud of God’s glory (Acts 1:9), their only possible response was to worship Him. Any doubts they had experienced about His claims to be “one with the Father” (John 10:30) as the co-eternal Son of God (John 8:58) had been dispelled by the forty days they had spent with Him after His resurrection (Acts 1:3) and by what they saw here before their very eyes.

But why were they not paralyzed by sorrow at His leaving? Why did they return to Jerusalem with great joy when the One they loved had disappeared from their sight? Well, because He’d said that once they were in Jerusalem He would send on them the promised Holy Spirit, and they would be clothed with “power from on high” to announce the message of repentance and the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus to the whole world. Their lives were about to change forever. They were about to become Spirit-empowered agents of Jesus’ Kingdom of Heaven on earth … and they couldn’t wait!

Life Application: You don’t have to wait. If you are in Christ, His Spirit already dwells in you. So, listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit today and then engage someone in conversation and, when the opportunity arises naturally, witness to them about Jesus and about the difference He has made in your life.