Do you want God's Spirit to work in your life and church as he did in the first Christians and church?  Do you believe Scripture when it says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8)?  Do you believe that God can do anything he wishes, and that he could move in our lives and service with the same power we saw in theirs?  Do you believe that he wants to do this morning what he did at Pentecost?

Then why doesn't the Spirit work like this in us today?  When he doesn't, the simple reason is that we haven't asked him to.  We haven't done what Scripture teaches us to do, that we might know his power now.

So, what are we to do?  Ephesians 5:18 is our key: "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.  Instead, be filled with the Spirit."  Let's walk through this verse, step by step, and experience it in our lives this week.

First, receive the Holy Spirit in salvation.  This verse is to believers, and it assumes that we have already asked Jesus to forgive our sins and be our Lord.  When we do, the Holy Spirit moves into our lives (cf. Romans 8:9).  Have you made this decision?  If you have not, make it right now.

Second, decide that you need his power.  Not just his salvation, but his power.  A carpenter knows that an electric saw needs power.  Do we know that our churches, our lives need power as well?

To be "filled" by the Spirit means to be under his control.  Just as someone drunk with wine is "under the influence," so a Christian is to be "under the influence" of the Holy Spirit.  The first Christians needed this power, and they knew it.  They were 120, charged with taking Christ to a hostile nation of 4,000,000 and an ungodly Empire of 25,000,000.  This meant that each Christian had to win more than 30,000 people just in Israel to fulfill God's purpose for them.

But Jesus had promised them his help: "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" (Luke 24:49).  So they stayed in Jerusalem, at the risk of their own lives, until they received the power they needed.

Now we must do the same.  How?  Let's continue in the morning.