Chapter ( Seven )

Restoring the Connection 

The King-Son had promised his disciples concerning the Governor, “He lives with you and will be in you.” He would connect them to the Father through the Spirit. After his resurrection, the work of preparing humanity to receive the Governor was complete. The spirit of rebellion and independence from the kingdom was broken. Any human being who personally received the sacrifice of Jesus, applying it to his own life, was now cleansed and qualified to be a resi-dence for the Governor.  

@The Breath of Jesus. 

 Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection therefore led up to his most important act on earth: the giving of the Gov-ernor. Shortly after his resurrection, Jesus came to the room where his disciples had gathered, and said, “‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” Note that Jesus breathed on them. Does that act seem famil-iar? It was very similar to what the Creator did when he first made Adam a living being: “The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” But in this life-giving act, the King-Son specifically explained what this meant. 

He didn’t just say, “Receive the breath of life.” He said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”The breath of life is the Holy Spirit; the Governor is the life of humanity. Without Him, even though our bodies may be physically alive for a limited length of time, we are dead to the kingdom, to the heavenly inf luence we were created to live in, and to the Creator-King himself.In other words, when the Creator first breathed into Adam, he was essentially saying, “Ceive the Holy Spirit.” Now, Jesus was saying to his disciples, as the first human beings (besides him-self) to be filled with the Spirit, “Re-ceive the Holy Spirit.” In the English language, we don’t use the word ceive as a verb, but the English word receive comes from the Latin re- (again) and capere(to take).

1 When Adam rebelled, he lost the Spirit he had been given. So when Jesus brought the disciples together after the resurrection, he was saying, in effect, “Humanity, take the Spirit again, as Adam did.” He was giving human beings back what they had lost.In breathing on his disciples, Jesus reconnected humanity to the kingdom of heaven. 

He was literally bringing his dis-ciples into identity with heaven’s government. He was renewing human beings’ standing and authority in the kingdom. They were restored to their original assignment as vice governors of earth. So the disciples of Jesus were the first human beings after Jesus to receive the Governor resident within them again.The return of the Holy Spirit is the most important act of redemption in God’s program for humanity. 

At that moment, the kingdom of God returned to earth because the Spirit lived within humanity once more!Note that, after his resurrection, Jesus’ message continued to be the kingdom. Luke the physician wrote,In my former book...I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 

After his suffer-ing, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.Some people question whether the kingdom of heaven is on earth right now. The answer is absolutely yes. In order to underst a nd why, we have to remember t he nat ure of k ingdoms. Wherever the Governor is, the kingdom is present. Wherever the Spirit of the King is, the kingdom is. The Governor is the presence of the absent King. 

Luke recorded Jesus’ response when he was asked about this very question: Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘there it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.” The kingdom of God is within you when the Governor is resident within you. And when the Governor is resident within you, the kingdom of heaven is present on earth. Jesus told his followers, “I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.” According to Luke’s account in his second book, Acts, about one hundred twenty disciples were present when the Governor was poured out and fully reinstated on earth.

 @Waiting for the Fire. 

 Jesus’ purpose was to reintroduce the government that had been recalled from earth by humanity’s rebellion. After he had completed his mission of providing a way for the inhabitants to be holy again, he returned to the heavenly kingdom. The ascen-sion of Jesus was evidence of his finished work on earth, indicat-ing that all was in readiness for the Governor’s full return. 

The gospel of Mark records, “After the Lord Jesus had spoken to [his disciples], he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God.” I believe he reported to the Father at this time that everything was in place for the Governor to be poured out on the inhabitants of earth. Jesus had instructed his disciples about how they would receive this power from the Governor. On various occasions, he made these statements to his disciples:And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. 

The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 

 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit....But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”Jesus had already breathed the Spirit on his disciples. They had received the Governor into their lives and were connected to the kingdom. But they still needed to be connected to the kingdom’s power, which the King would soon send them. 

This is what John meant when he said Jesus would baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire. After Jesus returned to the heav-enly kingdom, the “fire” would come, and his mission of both reconnection and restored power would be fully realized.In other words, Jesus was saying, “For the last three-and-a-half years, I have been telling you that the influence of the heavenly government is coming. Every time I talked about the kingdom, I was referring to the Governor’s influence in your lives and on the world.

 Now, stay here in Jerusalem because you’re about to receive the fullness of the promise my Father made to you.” Jesus told them they would be clothed with power from “on high.” This point is vital: we are to receive our power from the heavenly country, from a place outside this world, because this world is controlled by the kingdom of dark-ness. Again, the King-Son sent the Governor to earth from the throne of the Father, just as a royal governor was sent to a colony from the throne of the king to carry on the work of the sovereign there.

 @The Holy Spirit Poured Out at Pentecost. 

After Jesus ascended to heaven, his disciples, along with over one hundred other followers, met together and awaited the coming of the Governor. His arrival occurred on the day of Pentecost, which means “fiftieth” in Greek.2 Pentecost was a harvest feast held on the fiftieth day after the Passover feast. Jesus appeared to his followers over a period of forty days after his resurrection, and they waited ten days from his ascension for the coming of the Spirit. These fifty days bring us exactly to the day of Pentecost. Luke the physician recorded,When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 

They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues languages as the Spirit enabled them. When Jesus’ followers were filled with the Holy Spirit, they were given power to speak in the variety of languages spoken by the Jewish people who had come to Jerusalem, from a number of countries, to celebrate the feast of Pentecost. The heavenly government gave them the ability to communicate the message that the kingdom of God had fully come so that people of many nations could hear this momentous news. 

Their speaking in these languages was an evidence that they were connected to the King and their assignment to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth. As recorded in the book of Mark, Jesus had previously told his disciples, “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will...speak in new tongues....”Luke reported that the people who heard them said, in essence, “Why are you speaking like this; what is going on with you?” The disciple Peter responded,Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. 

Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.”...God has raised this Jesus King-Son] to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father [King-Father] the promised Holy Spirit Governor and has poured out what you now see and hear. Once again, we see the promise of the Father announced; but this time, the news was that the promise was now fulfilled in the return of the Governor. Peter was telling them they were witnessing the influence of the government of heaven through the arrival of the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus’ disciples received the Holy Spirit, and then were filled by the Spirit when he was poured out at Pente-cost, this signaled a seismic change on earth. The way was now open, for all people who received the cleansing Jesus provided, to receive the presence and power of the Governor. What separates the kingdom of heaven from all other phi-losophies, belief systems, and religions is that its citizens have within them the Holy Spirit. Religions have doctrines, tenets, and lists of dos and don’ts, but they don’t have the indwelling Spirit. 

@The Power of Absence.

 As we saw in the previous chapter, while the Holy Spirit once dwelled only in Jesus, now He is able to dwell in millions of people throughout the world. He’s back home in the colony so that the whole planet can be filled with the glory of the King. Now that he has been poured out, he can be all over the world at the same time. He lives in people of all races and skin colors. He lives in both men and women. The physical Jesus had only two hands with which to bless children and break bread for the hungry and relieve the sick. 

Now, through the Spirit dwelling in the lives of his followers, there are millions of hands doing the work of the kingdom. While Jesus’ ministry was once limited to the area of Palestine, it can now be in Aus-tralia, China, the United States, the Bahamas, and all over the world at the same time. His purpose is to spread the kingdom of God on earth through a multitude of people, in a multitude of ways, in all spheres of life. 

 For example, if the Spirit lives within you, then, when you are at your job, the heavenly government is also present there. He wants you to bring about his influence in your workplace by your kingdom value system, attitude, forgiveness, love, and patience. If anyone asks you, “Why are you so different?” your answer can be the same as Jesus’: “My kingdom is not of this world.” The King wants you to represent his kingdom in the midst of the kingdom of darkness, so others can be reconciled to the heavenly government, also. 

@Greater Works on Earth. 

John recorded this statement by Jesus, which he made shortly before his death and resurrection: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” How cou ld we do greater works than Jesus did on earth? The word greater here has to do with magnitude, not quality. We could never improve on the quality of the works of Jesus. But when we are aligned with the mind and will of the Father, and his purposes are foremost in our lives, Jesus promised, “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.” 

The nature of the heavenly govern-ment will be spread throughout the colony, and this will bring due honor to the King of both heaven and earth. All who have received his Spirit will collectively multiply his works in the world. The power of the Governor is that he makes the reality of heaven on earth possible. This is why everybody needs the Holy Spirit. He is the only one who can connect us to the King and, through us, dispel the kingdom of darkness with his kingdom of light. He is the most important person on earth.