Week 27—Monday Acts 16:6-10
Acts 16:6-10
“GIVE COMMANDMENT THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT”
We are looking at the next Divine Impact. We saw that the Word became Final—final authority, power. There is another step: The Word became within. “After he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit to the apostles” (Acts 1:2). “And while staying with them he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, ‘you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit’ ” (Acts 1:4-5). Up to this point in our study of the Word become flesh it has all been on the outside—in history. Here at this step the Word becomes Within. Note: “After he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit.” The commandments were from this time on from within—“through the Holy Spirit.” The authority over us was being transferred from the without to the within.
And that is important. For authority to be real, authority must come from within. As long as authority is from without, not identified with us, it cannot be real authority. It must speak from within if it is to be final authority. As long as authority is from without, it is autocracy. When it is within, it is autocracy with autonomy—a blending of the two.
This is most amazing. When Jesus comes to final authority at the right hand of the Father, he deliberately chooses to exercise it from within. That means that he speaks from within and awaits our inner consent before it becomes manifest as final lordship. For Divine Wisdom knows that only as we willingly and gladly consent to cooperate with the Word, will that Word become flesh in us. If we are only governed from without, we are not governed—we are coerced. Only when the government is identified with us by consent is it the government of free men. What a Lord!
O Jesus Lord, we stand amazed at the humility of your authority. You are not willing to exercise it from without entirely; only from within do you rule in your final rule. We are at the feet of such Humility—the Word of Humility become flesh. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Jesus does not govern me by bluster, nor by blister—he does it quietly and calmly from within.