greater things have yet to come

this is kind of from a few chapters back, but it's been on my heart ever since i read it my last week at sky this summer, and then it happened to be in our quest reading in John 14.

John 14 is all about how Jesus is the way to the Father, and about how He is going to leave soon and go to the Father--but that although He is leaving, His works will continue to be done through us as believers. He also touches on the baller fact in verse 10 that "The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father who dwells in me does his works." This is Jesus giving glory to the Father by not claiming to do anything on His own apart from God, but giving all the credit to our Father in Heaven for anything He says and does. SO COOL. We should be more like Jesus in this regard-- that nothing we do or say or are comes from us alone, but the God in us--especially if we are believers. 2 Cor. 3:5 says "Not that we are sufficient in ourselves, to claim anything for ourselves, but our sufficiency comes from God." This means that we cannot claim ANYTHING for ourselves...especially when we are doing His work. We can't take the credit. It is GOD within us that causes great works to happen...nothing within our sinful, depraved selves as human beings leads us to do such good things. It is God alone--and we should rejoice in that fact!That God loves us that much and trusts us as His chosen children that much to allow Himself to work in and THROUGH us...to minister to others and to continue to do his works.

This is shown in verse 12: "Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father." I love this verse so much. I remember reading it one morning during breakfast on the back porch my last week at Sky and tears rolling down my face. Because we BELIEVE, God entrusts the Holy Spirit to dwell within each of us and do great works--and Jesus says, to do even greater works than He HIMSELF did on earth. How crazy is that?? This strongly encouraged me my last week at Sky because I realized that I was not doing this for myself or to bring glory to Whitley Leiss, but to God above...and that the works I was doing were all because of the Spirit living within me! God stirs and works within each of us, and we have to remember that greater things have yet to come. When Jesus left, the Spirit was allowed to enter us as humans and work within...something that had not yet been ordained by God.

So, dear friends, recognize the Spirit that is dwelling within you--GOD within you, CHRIST within you, the HOLY SPIRIT within you--and do His work. Do it all for His kingdom and further it with the intentions of praising Him and bringing Him the utmost glory. Acts has a lot to do with the Holy Spirit and its presence/affect in the lives of the apostles/Christians, and we cannot deny the fact that the Holy Spirit is currently dwelling within each of us and is ready to go to WORK.