God Exceedingly Expects Us to want more from him! blogpost by Tammy Konneker

It's so hard for me to wrap my hands around the fact that while Jesus was here he told us in John 14: 12 "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." WOW, how could we frail humans, flawed by sin, marred by worldly scars do GREATER things than Jesus.....the perfect lamb of God. I think we fail to see our own potential, the potential that all of us have been given to change lives of those around us.

For the past few years I've felt really pressed to lean more into the book of Acts. Luke had written his second book of the bible....as one of the twelve chosen to set off a movement of the Holy Spirit...in Acts Luke sets out to teach what the church should look like, act like and be like. In the first chapter he briefly describes the time that Jesus spent with them after his resurrection. Luke opens with the fact that Jesus came back to them and spent the next forty days speaking to them about the kingdom. Jesus first instruction to them was to WAIT....he was testing their obedience and patience. Jesus tells them that soon he would be gone but the Holy Spirit would come to replace him....and this Holy Spirit would guide us...if we listened and expected to hear.

I have to laugh as I read Acts 1:9-11 "After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking INTENTLY up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 'Men of Galilee,' they said, 'why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven." Now......I'm sorry....but wouldn't most of us be freaked out, first by just seeing Jesus ascend into heaven and then as your just standing there in shock, two dudes dressed in white suddenly are standing on either side of you saying.....WHATCHA LOOKIN AT? Luke didn't go any further into detail of their reaction but I can only imagine their dumbfounded look.....and suddenly being speechless as to what had just happened.

After this they began the process of building the church.....Luke says the first thing they did was joined in constant prayer. Most people think that prayer should be a time of just sitting down and praying. I find that when I just sit down and try to pray.....I'm usually at a loss for words. A relationship with Christ is like a good marriage, you spend all day talking and interacting with one another.....I know my husband......I know my Lord. My line of communication is ongoing, there is never a time that I feel that I can't call upon his comfort and know that its there. God has called us to far more than what we are currently giving him. He called us to be more than he was......and so much of the world has crept into our lives that we have forgotten that we were called for Exceedingly more than this.