Apparently, from Scripture, they only took one other step! Luke continues his story in Acts 1 where Jesus explains more fully that the "promise of the Father" is the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5,8). Then, after Jesus' ascension, Luke states that "All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer"(Acts 1:14). The rest of the chapter is an example of how they prayed for a practical ministry problem, and God led to its resolution.
Prayer and praise are the only things we know, for sure, that Christ's followers were doing as "they were all together in one place" (Acts 2:1) on the day of Pentecost.
But what does prayer have to do with my assertion that Christian Contentment is the first step to receiving the Holy Spirit fully?
Jeremiah Burroughs believes that Christian Contentment "is opposed to murmuring and repining at the hand of God, as the discontented Israelites often did. If we cannot bear this either in our children or servants, much less can God bear it in us." Then after exclaiming, "What evil God sees in the vexing and fretting of my heart, and murmuring and repining of my spirit!" he goes on to detail "The Evils of a Murmuring Spirit":
The sixth evil in a murmuring spirit is, by murmuring you undo your prayers, for it is exceedingly contrary to the prayer that you make to God. When you come to pray to God, you acknowledge his sovereignty over you, you come there to profess yourselves to be at God's disposal. What do you pray for, unless you acknowledge that you are at his disposal? Unless you will stand, as it were, at his disposal never come to petition him. If you will come to petition him and yet will be your own carver you go contrary to your prayers, to come as if you would beg your bread at your Father's gates every day, and yet you must do what you list: this is the undoing of the prayers of a Christian.The Father answered the disciple's prayer for the Holy Spirit at Pentecost because they were submitted to Him. Their contentment-based prayer and praise led them into full dependence on that great effective structure that brings spiritual life to Christ's church.
Do you see how contentment fits with the quote that started this section?
He who loves Christ the most will do the greatest amount of good. There is no limit to the usefulness of one who, by putting self aside, makes room for the working of the Holy Spirit upon his heart, and lives a life wholly consecrated to God. If men will endure the necessary discipline, without complaining or fainting by the way, God will teach them hour by hour, and day by day. He longs to reveal His grace. If His people will remove the obstructions, He will pour forth the waters of salvation in abundant streams through the human channels. If men in humble life were encouraged to do all the good they could do, if restraining hands were not laid upon them to repress their zeal, there would be a hundred workers for Christ where now there is one. - The Desire of Ages pp 250,251My question is; What structures do we have at Toronto that help us "learn to be content", content in prayer, content in praise? Only if we let God teach us those first steps, God can answer our prayers and the Holy Spirit's power will light up Toronto church and our neighborhood.
