When the Holy Spirit Comes on You
(Acts 1:8)

A blessed new year has begun. In the New Year, people make New Year’s resolutions with big dreams and hopes. However, before long they find that their dreams fade away when they are confronted with various real troubles in their lives. What type of attitudes of faith should we Christians have in the New Year?

1. A faith of the fullness of the Holy Spirit
Before Jesus ascended to heaven, He promised to send the Holy Spirit that the Father had promised.(Acts 1:4-5) Then He sent the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, as He promised.(Acts 2:1-4) We now live in the age of the Holy Spirit; and without the power of the Holy Spirit, we can never live a victorious life in this world. Therefore we should always long for the fullness of the Holy Spirit.(Eph 5:18) The Holy Spirit is the Comforter sent to us instead of Jesus.(Jn 14:16) Until we get to heaven, we have to live a life of accomplishing the Holy Spirit’s work.

2. A faith that is accompanied by God’s power
Acts 1:8 says, "When the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will receive power." Power is 'Dunamis' in Greek, and the word 'dynamite' is derived from that word. Dunamis means “a power that is highly explosive”. When the Holy Spirit comes on us, we will all receive that power. Peter denied Jesus three times, but after he received the fullness of the Holy Spirit, he received power, and when he preached the gospel boldly three thousand people repented and turned back to God in a day. (Acts 2:41) When the Holy Spirit comes on us, signs will accompany us.(Mk 16:16-17).

3. A faith that lives as a martyring witness
It says that when the Holy Spirit comes on us, we will receive power and become witnesses. Here the witness is 'martys' in Greek. This word has two meanings: a martyr and a witness. That is, when the Holy Spirit comes on us and we receive power, we become witnesses who preach the gospel by laying down our life. All the disciples who received the Holy Spirit preached the gospel with a martyring spirit. After the gospel was preached to Korea, a large number of martyrs shed their blood in this land. By the blood of those martyrs, our country, Korea has now become a great missionary country.

Now facing a new year, we all should receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit, become witnesses, preach the gospel to the ends of the earth with martyring spirituality and practice the love of Jesus as the disciples of the Lord.