Last week,
when we finished our story, Jesus had just given eleven of His
followers a very important job. They were supposed to tell the whole
world about how big and how good God is.
It seemed
like too big of a job for such a small group of people, and, right
after He gave the instructions, Jesus went back up to heaven. He
wasn't living on earth anymore to show and tell people how big and
how good God is. Now, the disciples had to do it. But, do you know
what they did instead?
They waited.
Instead of
going out and telling the world, they got together with about 150 of
Jesus' followers, and waited, just like Jesus had told them to do.
They didn't know quite what they were waiting for, but they knew that
Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem. If they are going to tell
the world, or even their neighbors, anything, they are going to need
some help. So, God does something really cool. Listen to this.
When
the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven
and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what
seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each
of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to
speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them...Then Peter stood up with the Eleven,
raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of
you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen
carefully to what I say...Those who accepted his message were
baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that
day. (Acts 1:1-4,14,41)
God does
just what He promised. He sends them the Holy Spirit to help them do
their job, just like He gave His breath to Adam and Eve to help them
do their job. And, it works. In one day, one hundred fifty people
become three thousand one hundred fifty people. It starts to look
like, maybe, with the Holy Spirit, things are starting to get easy.
And, the
Holy Spirit does help them. But, that doesn't make things easy...
Download a PDF of the entire story here and click on the activity pages below to download.
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