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“And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father…”
(Acts 1:4)

“So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.”
(Hebrews 4:9–10)

THE HOLY PAUSE BEFORE THE POWER

We often read Acts 2 with breathless anticipation: the tongues of fire, the rushing wind, and the bold proclamation of Peter. But too easily, we skip over Acts 1—the quiet, hidden obedience that made Pentecost possible.

Before the fire fell, the disciples did something radical: they waited!

In an age that rewards action, ambition, and noise, this is perhaps the most counter-cultural command of Jesus:

“Do not leave. Stay. Wait.”

Why did He say this? Because abiding is not passivity—it is positioning. It is alignment. It is the holy pause that makes space for heaven to move. And in that Upper Room, the disciples weren’t simply killing time. They were entering into the deepest form of spiritual rest: expectant stillness.

THE UPPER ROOM: A WOMB FOR NEW BEGINNINGS

The Upper Room was not chosen at random. Throughout Scripture, upper rooms are places of death and resurrection, of solitude and encounter. Elijah raises a dead boy there (1 Kings 17). Elisha does the same (2 Kings 4). Yeshua eats His last supper in an upper room and washes the feet of His friends.

It is the place where heaven touches earth in hidden ways.

Symbolically, the Upper Room is a womb—a place of incubation. Closed off. Secret. Private. Elevated. Separated from the clamour below. There, the disciples were not strategising. They were yielding.

They were not manufacturing revival. They were making room for God’s answer to their obedience.

They waited not as passive observers but as active participants in divine gestation. They were learning what it means to abide until the fire comes.

THE LAST COMMAND OF JESUS: DO NOTHING

Let that sink in.

The very last command Jesus gave before ascending was not a missionary call or a building plan. It was this:

“Wait in Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49)

He didn’t tell them to evangelise, preach, or start churches. He told them to rest—but a very specific kind of rest: one anchored in expectancy and obedience. But this is not the command that is emphasised. We are always instructed to go forth and make disciples, but how many times have you been told to stop and rest in God’s presence and wait for His holy unction?

This is not laziness. This is Hebrews 4 rest: the active choice to cease from your own works so that God’s work may begin.

“Let us therefore strive to enter that rest…”
(Hebrews 4:11)

I’ll be honest, I hate waiting for anything. It’s uncomfortable and feels like a waste of time. But it has also proven to be the one thing that guarantees divine interventions in my life.

“For since the world began, no ear has heard and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for [on] him!” (Isaiah 64:4)

Whether you like waiting on God in prayer or not (and you probably don’t), it works!

Either we “work” (try to save ourselves, fix everything, and control outcomes) and God waits for us to stop, or we wait on Him and He works for us. These are the only two options.

Even rest requires intentionality. Not the rest of escapism, but the rest of agreement, of alignment. Waiting is a posture that says,

“I will not move unless You move. I will not force open a door You have not yet unlocked. I trust the timing of heaven more than the urgency of earth.”

ABIDING IS NOT DELAY—IT IS FORMATION

In John 15, Jesus said, “Abide in Me… and you will bear much fruit,” and also,

“If you abide in [wait on] Me [like a butler] and My words abide in you [live in you because you immerse yourself in them], ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”

Ever wonder why you don’t get what you want? Maybe it’s because we haven’t given Him the one thing we said we would: our lives!

“Therefore I urge you, brothers, in full view of God’s mercies [covenant benefits], to offer [present, bring close] your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

Check the scriptures; you will find it is the only thing that is actually required from us!

But we often try to shortcut the process. We want the fruit without the abiding. The fire without the waiting. The answers to prayer without the abiding. The riches of the mercies of God without actually presenting our bodies to Him as our spiritual worship. The influence without the interior transformation. But you cannot have the reward without the obedience first.

Yet it is in the Upper Room of your life—that season of hidden obedience, obscurity, and stillness—that your capacity is expanded. God is not withholding from you; He is preparing you to carry what He wants to give.

We are the ones withholding the rights due to a Husband.

What if the delay is mercy? What if the silence is an invitation to deeper trust? What if it is a call to actually draw close to Him where He can actually save you from yourself, the world, and the devil?

THE REST THAT RELEASES POWER

When the fire fell at Pentecost, it did not fall on a conference stage or a battlefront. It fell in a room of rest—on people who had simply obeyed the last thing Jesus said.

They had entered His rest, and now He entered them with power.

This is the blueprint.

This is what we’ve lost in our modern mad striving and stunning ignorance of spiritual process: the art of sacred waiting. We want fire without fuel, glory without groaning, and acceleration without stillness. But in God’s kingdom, rest always precedes release.

You cannot pour out what you have not first received. And you cannot receive until you sit still long enough for your vessel to be filled. God always only uses the cups closest to Him.

PRACTICES FOR ENTERING THE UPPER ROOM

How do we emulate that posture today? How do we step into the rest that prepares us for the fire?

1. Consecrate space and time: create your own “upper room.” It might be a corner, a chair, or a walk. The point is sacred separation.
2. Pray without performance: The disciples “joined constantly in prayer” (Acts 1:14), but there’s no record of them asking for tongues. They simply abided (waited as they were instructed to do). Let your prayer be communion, not transaction.
3. Stay with the Word: Meditate on Acts 1–2 and Hebrews 4. Let the text shape your expectations.
4. Wait without an agenda: the moment you try to engineer the Spirit, you move out of rest. Simply say, “Here I am, Lord.”
5. Obey the last word: has God told you to stay, to write, to prepare, or to pause? Honour that. His fire always follows obedience.

If we do this one thing, wait on God; He will do for us what we could never do for ourselves.

BTW, this may be simple, but it’s not easy, fun, or exciting. Don’t expect it to be, and you’ll be fine. Instead, expect boredom, silence, and physical & mental discomfort. That is why it is called a sacrifice. Put in the extra time, and the ordinary will suddenly become extra-ordinary and super-natural.

A PRAYER FOR THE UPPER ROOM SEASON

Lord of the Upper Room,
Teach me how to wait without striving.
Show me the beauty of hidden obedience.
I yield my timelines, my platforms, and my urgency.
Clothe me in the stillness that welcomes fire.
Let me abide until You move,
and when You do, let me rise not in haste
but in holy boldness.
I want to rest like the disciples—
fully present, deeply expectant, utterly Yours.
Amen.

MEMORY VERSE

“Be still before the LORD [the Eternal one] and wait patiently for Him.”
— Psalm 37:7

FIVE QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

1. What is my current “upper room“? Where is God calling me to wait and abide?
2. Am I obeying Jesus’ last command—to stay and wait—or am I moving ahead on my own?
3. How does my understanding of rest change when I connect it to power and preparation?
4. What does Hebrews 4 teach me about the inner warfare required to truly rest?
5. How might I create rhythms of waiting and expectancy in my daily life?