"For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off" (Acts 2:39)
The period of the promise [of the Holy Spirit] extends from John the Baptist, roughly, to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus.
The marks of it are these: that there were disciples, and they were commissioned and instructed, and they exercised their commission and the authority granted them by the Lord. They knew that Lord Jesus; they loved Him. They knew Him living, they knew Him and saw Him dead, and they saw Him risen again from the dead. All the time our Lord was with them He was busy creating expectation in them. He was telling His disciples that in spite of all they had and all the blessing that God the Father had given them, they were still to expect the coming of a new and superior kind of life ... an effusion of outpoured energy which they, at their best, did not yet enjoy.
Then our Lord rose from the dead and we have what we call the period of the preparation. They had stopped their activities at the specific command of the Lord. He said, "Tarry! You are about to receive that which has been promised ..." Sometimes you are going farther when you are not going anywhere; you are moving faster when you are not moving at all.
Oh, my heart, be still before Him!
~A. W. Tozer~
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