The Holy Spirit: Power Presence and Purpose Part 19

The Advent Part 11

Acts 1:7-8, “And He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

If we ask God a question, we must patiently wait until we receive an answer, and once we have received an answer, accept the answer that He gives us. One of the most difficult things we must come to terms with as believers, is that sometimes God’s answer to our query will simply be, ‘it is not for you to know.’ For some reason we refuse to be told that something is not for us to know, and rather than accept it and move on, we begin to formulate scenarios, we begin to hypothesize, we begin to make connections of certain things where no connections can be found, and in our stubbornness believe that if God was unwilling to reveal something to us we’ll just figure out on our own.

A telling interaction took place between Peter and Jesus in the gospel according to John, one that we could learn from when it comes to accepting that some things are not for us to know, and it is of no use trying to see beyond the veil of them because God will not allow it.

John 21:20-22, “Then Peter, turning around saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, who also had leaned on His breast at the supper, and said, ‘Lord who is the one who betrays You?’ Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, ‘but Lord, what about this man?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me.”

Rather than understanding what Jesus was saying, namely that it was not Peter’s concern as to what would become of John, but rather his only duty was to follow Christ, the saying went out among the brethren that this disciple would not die. Jesus never said that John would not die, but merely that it was none of Peter’s concern if He willed it that John remain alive till He came.

To put it bluntly, far too often we stick our noses in things that do not pertain to us, things that we have no business sticking our noses into, because we are self-righteous busybodies who want to impose our own understanding, our own viewpoint, our own perceptions upon the entirety of the house of God.

‘Well brother, you know, you quote Paul the Apostle far too often even though his allegiance to Jesus is suspect, and there are even rumors floating about that he was a satanic plant to lead the household of faith astray.’

Yet these selfsame individuals have no problem quoting from the Apocrypha, the lost book of Enoch, or the gospel of Judas when their point of view is supported by them.

Know what your responsibility is toward the body of Christ, know what your duty is within the body of Christ, and go about it with faithfulness and zeal, follow Christ, and allow for the reality that some things are not for you to know.

You will never get bored with Jesus if you pursue Him with pure intentions and a humble heart, you will never come to a point when you’ve learned everything there is to know of God, and ascended to the mountaintop of sanctification and holiness, so why expel your energies pursuing something that profits you nothing spiritually? We can come to God, but we can never surpass God for He is infinite. It is only when we in our stubbornness attempt to go beyond Him that we find ourselves in the mire of confusion and uncertainty. What is it to me if Christ would have willed for John to remain until He returned? My duty is to follow Him, everything else is a nonissue.

Yes there are things which God will not reveal to us, there are things which we were not given to know, because they would be counterproductive to our spiritual journey, and our walk of faith. Thus the reason we will never know the day and the hour when the Lord Jesus will return, because it would keep people from pursuing a lifelong, constant and perpetual relationship with God. Why would this be? Because the heart of man is exceedingly wicked, and if man knew the day and hour when Christ would return, they would make sure to be on their best behavior no more than a few hours beforehand.

Those things which lead us to a greater knowledge of the person of Jesus, those things through which we grow and are sanctified, those things which give us courage and boldness to labor on behalf of His kingdom are readily available to us, they are revealed to us, because they aid in our progress and our growth. It is these things we ought to be concerned with, it is these things we ought to be focused upon, those things that mature us in the faith, that bring us out of a state of spiritual infancy to spiritual adulthood wherein we become soldiers of the cross, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

We must trust and implicitly so that the Holy Spirit will guide us in all truth, and all that we need in order to live full lives for Jesus will be revealed to us by Him. At the same time we must likewise understand that certain mysteries will remain mysteries for as long as we remain in these husks of flesh, but those things that remain mysteries will do nothing to impede our progress, stunt our growth, or diminish us in any way spiritually. In His mercy God has seen to it that we have everything we need at our disposal to be all that He desires us to be.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.