The ascended Lord had regathered His flock of scattered sheep. They were all together in the upper room in Jerusalem. What did they do? From a human point of view, what would have made sense?

One thing they could have done was give moving testimonies about their personal experiences with Jesus and especially about how He had gathered them in. Peter could have made them weep with his story about how he had denied the Lord three times and about how the Lord had restored him by asking him three times: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Matthew the tax collector would have had a wonderful story to tell about his conversion experience. Simon the Zealot could have given an interesting talk comparing and contrasting the Liberation Theology of the Zealots with the Liberating Gospel of Jesus Christ. Imagine the testimony Mary Magdalene could have given about how the Lord had cast seven demons out of her! And what about His brothers? James, Judas and Simon could have shared hundreds of stories about the childhood days of their special brother. And Mary! Oh, what stories she could have told about her eldest son.

That's one thing they could have done.

There was something else they could have done. They could have developed some church growth strategies and set some immediate and long-range goals for reaching the unsaved – 100,000 converts by the year 50, and 1 million by the year 100.

They could have done things like that. But they did not. What did they do? They prayed. We read nothing about brief but moving testimonies. We read nothing about church growth networking strategies adopted from famous American soap companies. They prayed. Luke tells us that the believers, whom Christ had gathered together immediately after He had ascended into heaven, devoted themselves to prayer with one accord. They stayed at it. They persisted in their praying. They devoted themselves to prayer.

They prayed for strength and wisdom to carry out the work Christ had given them to do. They were to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. With one accord, with one heart and voice, they prayed for the strength to do this work.

Christ, through the Holy Spirit, gave them the strength. The book of Acts is proof of that. First the church preached the good news of Christ in Jerusalem. Then the believers went out into Judea and Samaria. From there they conducted missionary journeys throughout Asia Minor. The book of Acts ends with Paul preaching in Rome.

The church still has the task of preaching the gospel of the risen and ascended Lord at home and to the end of the earth. That's the church's job. With one accord, united in Christ, we must pray for strength to do that job. By the Holy Spirit He will strengthen us for this task.