Ready to Leave the Upper Room?

Today, Kate begins the first in our Pentecost series, as we join in those who left the Upper Room! 

Pentecost isn’t just the birth and origin story of the Christian Church, it’s also a great reminder of how easy it is to become stuck and what it takes to set us free.

Maybe you’re a new believer and you’re out of the old life but not quite into the new… or maybe you’ve been a Christian for a while but have become attached to the last experience, the last encounter and even the last place Jesus sent you. Perhaps you’ve become stuck in idealised memories of past-times, waiting in hope for ‘lightning’ to strike again - just like it did first time round.  Replaying familiar scripts, ‘It used to be…’, ‘that’s the way I’ve always done it’, ‘take it or leave it, that’s just how I am!’ ’I wish I could relive…’  

We all live in hope that we will get a repeat dose of the wonderful experience that so amazed us last time!  But the odds of being struck by lightning twice in a lifetime is 1 in 9 million!

In order to realise God’s purposes for our lives (just in case you hadn’t realised, God has plans for you…), we somehow need to get unstuck!

The whole point of the upper room in the Pentecost story is that it is an incubator – a space that prepares and equips us for things to happen elsewhere.  Acts 1:4ff, reminds us, ‘you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ Followers of Jesus are never intended to stay in upper rooms, however nice and cosy they are!

Ultimately, it's the arrival of the Holy Spirit and a huge step of obedience that changes everything. But getting disrupted and freed from attitudes, reactions and behaviours we’ve held on to for what feels like forever, can be deeply unsettling. This is, of course, the whole point (I keep telling myself).

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is not to boldly go where no-one is likely to find you!

Ready to step out?

 *Art by Helen Yousaf https://www.helen-yousaf-art.com