The Power of Ascension Day 2018
The Christian world celebrates Ascension Day on May 10, 2018. The ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ finalized His redemptive work on earth and validated that His death on the cross was finished and all sufficient. It ended His humiliation and completed the resurrection. It exalted Him to the place of honor and authority at the right hand of God the Father.
By Grant McClung
He ascended to become the Great High Priest, interceding on our behalf before God. “Therefore,” asserts the writer of Hebrews,” since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess” (Hebrews 4.14 NIV).
Jesus ascended as a proof of His victory, to reign over all as the head of the church and give ministry gifts to His people. “When he ascended on high,” Paul stated,” he took many captives and gave gifts to his people” (Ephesians 4.8 NIV). Jesus ascended, “… higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe” (Ephesians 4.10 NIV).
In the Ascension, we have access to a new and living way.
We have access to God’s presence and we may come boldly to His throne of grace. We live joyfully in the “new and living way” that Jesus has opened for us (Hebrews 4.16; 10.19-20). There is access now to all spiritual blessings that flow from the throne of God!
In the Ascension, we have God’s approval, favor, and blessing.
After commissioning the disciples to the ends of the earth, Jesus began to bless them. “While he was blessing them,” reads the account, “he left them and was taken up into heaven” (Luke 24.51 NIV).
He commissioned them, began blessing them, and the ascension began! The last thing that was happening to them was the blessing and approval of their Lord! That blessing continues today for Great Commission believers who obediently and sacrificially advance to the nations under His authority and with His approval.
In the Ascension, we have the anointing of the Holy Spirit for service.
Through the ascension, Jesus was seated with authority at the Father’s right hand. Then, without human restraints, the ascended and exalted Baptizer in the Holy Spirit powerfully initiated His passion and desire, “I have come to bring fire on earth, and how I wish it were already kindled” (Luke 12.49 NIV).
After ten days, the fire of Holy Spirit baptism was poured out on the Day of Pentecost. Peter stood up to explain it: “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he [Jesus] has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear” (Acts 2.32-33 NIV).
After 2,000 years of the expansion of the Church of Jesus Christ to all corners of the globe, that fire has not died! It has become a mighty raging wildfire out of control – blazing beyond the borders of geography, ethnicity, and nationality; jumping across the barriers of religious tradition and attempted hindrances of ecclesiastical control.
Raised in power, ascended and exalted in glory, the Lord of the Harvest has kindled an inextinguishable fire of world evangelization upon the earth, burning until the coming day of His imminent return!
Dr. Grant McClung is President of Missions Resource Group (www.MissionsResourceGroup.org) and International Missionary Educator with Church of God World Missions. He was a member of the International Executive Council from 2006 – 2010.
