31 Foreseeing this, David spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did His body see decay.

32 God has raised this Jesus to life, to which we are all witnesses.

33 Exalted, then, to the right hand of God, He has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.

36 Therefore let all Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ!”

38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

39 This promise belongs to you and your children and to all who are far off—to all whom the Lord our God will call to Himself.”

40 With many other words he testified, and he urged them, “Be saved from this corrupt generation.”

41 Those who embraced his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to the believers that day.

— Acts 2:31-33, 36, 38-41

Thoughts on Today’s Reading

Grace, mercy and love from Christ to you.

When we look back into the church history, the early church didn’t start with a website of worship band or even a church building. It started with power of the Spirit. It started in a small upper room in Jerusalem where a group of ordinary, terrified Jesus-followers waited not for a plan, but for a living person, a Helper, a Comforter — the Spirit. Jesus had told them not to go anywhere until the Helper, the promised Spirit, comes and when He did, everything changed.

On the Pentecost, the scared disciples of Jesus, who once were hiding behind lock doors, were out in the streets, proclaiming the gospel in different languages that they had never learned. Peter, the same man who denied Jesus three times, was now preaching with such boldness. Then thousands were saved in that single day. What happened? The Spirit came! He did not just come upon them but into them and that power wasn’t just for them in the first century, it’s for us today as well!