Read the manual!

From early 2016

I have recently started a new job (this one!) and two weeks after I started the person I’m replacing left. Fortunately for me, she left me a giant yellow folder full of all the information I need to do her job – the people to contact, the websites to look at and the writing styles and tips that will be useful.

I couldn’t do this job without that file and the training she gave me before she left, and I am grateful for her diligent preparation before her departure.

However, when Caitlin left and I knew I “was it” I felt unprepared and a bit frightened!

It strikes me that Jesus’ disciples must have felt similarly thrown in the deep end and helpless when, after just three years’ training, He told them to get on with the job of spreading His message and teaching others to be His followers, and rose up into heaven.

And they didn’t have a manual – they had to write it themselves!

However, those disciples had something extra special – the very life, voice and power of Jesus within them through His Spirit – the Holy Spirit. It was like having one of those secret service earpieces with a direct line to Jesus telling them how to live, what to write and even something about what would happen in the future.

And believers in Jesus today are promised the very same thing – the Holy Spirit living within them and giving them comfort, direction, understanding of the Bible and even insights into the future.

No wonder those first followers of Jesus were transformed from frightened fishermen hiding together in Jerusalem, into bold preachers of the news that Jesus was alive and offered forgiveness of sins to all who asked!

Filed under: About the Bible, Jody Bennett, Thoughts on lifeTagged with: , , , ,