Friday 16th November 2012

Acts 2:17-18, Joel 2:28-32, Matthew 17:20

Matt Summerfield encourages us to be people who are captured by the possibility and not the problem in life

Matt Summerfield

On the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:17-18, the Holy Spirit filled the early Church and Peter, one of Jesus' disciples, stood up before a capacity crowd in Jerusalem and declared, quoting Joel 2:28-32:

"'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy."

These verses remind us of three really important things.

Firstly, we are living in the 'last days'. The 'last days' is a reference to the period of time between Christ's ascension and his return. There is a day coming when Jesus Christ will return to the earth and God will make everything new. Those who know Christ will live with him forever in the New Heavens and New Earth and those who have rejected Christ will be eternally separated from him. We are now living in the last days before his return.

Secondly, God is pouring out his Spirit on all people. The word for 'pour' literally means to gush out; to distribute largely. This is not some miserly, expensive Wimbledon size portion of strawberries and cream I'm talking about. This is a generous God filling his people with his power to continue the ministry of his Son, Jesus Christ, in his world.

Thirdly, the people of God dream. It doesn't matter whether you are old or young; male or female; whoever you are, wherever you are from, God wants you to receive visions and dreams. The people of God are supposed to see visions and dream dreams and they are supposed to speak out what they see and dream, because they know it's the word of the Lord.

The people of God are supposed to be visionary people.

The whole of human history reminds us that we live in a broken, imperfect, oppressive, unjust, struggling and suffering world. God knows that vision is essential for us, because it lifts us above our present challenges and dares to invite us to believe that things could be different; that things can change and get better.

That's what happens when the Spirit of God gets a hold of us. We dream dreams, we see visions, and we speak out the word of the Lord. We dream it and then we do it.

Bible scholar and Theologian Walter Wink once wrote, "When God wants to initiate a new movement in history, he does not intervene directly, but sends us dreams and visions that can, if attended to, initiate the process".

So today, how can you recapture and revive your broken dream; a dream that is no longer alive because it seems to have been suffocated by the weight of disappointment?

'Dream it! Do it!' people understand three things: