Acts 1:6-8 NKJV
Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

The disciples had endured much and even witnessed the resurrected Lord, and yet what was on their minds was the pressing matter of Israel’s independence. They felt that this was a noble and worthy enough cause for this newfound authority that Jesus was talking about. 

Often as Christians and leaders, we have many pressing personal and national issues that we feel should be addressed with our newfound Kingdom authority. Israel had not been free for hundreds of years, and the disciples thought maybe it was time.

I don’t know what it is for you. Maybe it’s a health issue, or it is a wayward child. Maybe it’s the financial situation of your people or the injustices that surround us. Maybe it’s the big culture wars raging on other continents that we are all worried will soon be battles to be fought where we are or other religious movements that are using every method to stop the movement of the Gospel.

But Jesus’ response was that this wasn’t our place and that the Father would deal with it. Ours was to receive power when the Holy Spirit comes and to become witnesses of Christ in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth.

What is your Jerusalem? That’s most likely the city where you are planted. In my case, that’s Kampala in Uganda. But notice that the command was to be witnesses at four levels. Most churches and ministries have answered the call to their Jerusalem and stopped there! They may have all sorts of spiritualized responses, like “That’s not my calling,” “God told me to remain here,” “I don’t have the grace of multiplication,” “We are called to be a community church,” or “We don’t have the resources for international ministry.”

It doesn’t matter how spiritual you make it sound. You are simply resisting the call of our Lord to go to all nations. It seems like every ministry that has obeyed God and taken on this vision has been blessed through the generations. All the people who insist on being in one place soon run into problems.

Today’s devotional is taken from the book EMBRACING REVIVAL: How to Plant, Grow and Multiply a Church into a Movement