The Holy Spirit

Don't know why I've never put 2 and 2 together before, but this was SO cool to learn from the Word today...

Acts 1:1-5

	The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach,
	until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen.
	To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.
	Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised,"Which," He said, "you heard of from Me;
	for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." The emphasis and color coding are, of course mine. Yet, for the purpose of explaining what I think the Lord showed me today, I needed to use those tools. When I did the Precept Upon Precept study of Kings & Prophets part 1, I learned how very important Jerusalem was (and I believe from Scripture, still is) to God. It was the place where He chose for His Name to dwell. It was the place where He chose for His Spirit to dwell. He told His people, Israel, to build a temple for Him, that His Spirit could dwell with them in the Holy of Holies...where the ark of the covenant was. (Forgive me if I'm paraphrasing this any, I'm going by memory here..just laying a bit of ground work that my "ah-ha" moment from this morning might make more sense.) My hope is that you're getting how precious Jerusalem was, and is, to God. I mean, think about it this way. Jesus' disciples were men from Galilee. Could He not have chosen to pour out His Spirit upon them in their own home towns? You see, Jerusalem. The place where God had first poured His Spirit out to His people Israel. The Spirit had FILLED the temple. He had been ushered in by God's people with great joy, much praising, trumpets blowing in great numbers. Yet, due to their disobedience, the temple was destroyed, and the Holy Spirit would not dwell with them permanently again, until Jesus made a way for it. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow, ..through Jesus Christ's completed work on the cross, we are all, Jew and Gentile, able to be reconciled to God through Him...and now the Holy Spirit dwells within the believer. We are now the temples of the Holy Spirit. But, back to my "ah-ha"....it all started in Jerusalem! (Both times!) Jesus obeyed the Father in all that He did here on earth, and it was the Father's will that His Spirit be poured out upon the apostles, thus the first filling of the Holy Spirit in a bodily temple...in Jerusalem! I just think that's HUGE! Amazing! Beautiful! So like God, too, to make it a precept upon a precept. A truth upon a truth. Jerusalem. How I hope I get to go one day. My sweet husband has been, but oh...how I long to go! When Precept Ministries posts the pictures from their visits, I always sit in front of my computer and pour through each one of them, tears streaming down my face. Jerusalem. It just became even more precious to me. Love ya'll today, Jes