According to the Apostle Paul, if we want to develop a spiritually robust and healthy church, we must obey our church leaders and recognise their authority. Most churchgoers are unaware of the stress, obstacles, and problems that their church leaders encounter in their ministry.
This season of Advent is commemorating the first coming of Christ as our Lord and Saviour and anticipating the second coming of Christ as the King of Kings. Our walk with the Lord Jesus Christ is very real and life transforming indeed.
Jesus said, You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit (John 15:16 NLT, emphasis added). Jesus says that the fruit lasts because He chose us and appointed us to bear spiritual fruit that lasts.
The apostle Paul knew what it was to have his life and movement restricted and to be literally locked up in chains. Yet, Paul declared that “what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel” (Philippians 1:12, NIV).
Pentecost also refers to the Jewish festival celebrated on the fiftieth day after First Fruits, also known as the "Feast of Weeks". This is what Jesus, the First Fruit, had done.
What an incredible, overwhelming moment of realization for Mary! The dead Jesus for whom she had come to complete His burial rites, was now standing before her, risen from the dead, alive as promised.