pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: Holy Spirit


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The Gift of the Holy Spirit

Reading: Romans 8: 14-17

At Pentecost the gift of the Holy Spirit changes us in two ways.  First, with the daily presence of the Spirit in our lives, the connection to God is constant and direct.  It allows the Spirit of Jesus to be in each of us all of the time.  So as He was in the Father and the Father was in Him, so are we in the Father and the Father is in us.  It is because of this new connection that we live as heirs in the kingdom and, as such, are now God’s children.  As Christ’s brothers and sisters, we are now able to share both in His glory and in His suffering.  Our identity is now in Christ.  We become bound to Him, not to the things of this world.  We pursue Christ, not power or wealth or fame.

The second change is in our connection to one another.  With the daily presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we are connected to one another as well.  We are brothers and sisters together in Christ.  The importance of this relationship cannot be overstated.  As we continue on our journey of faith, we walk together.  Instead of feeling alone, isolated, or scared, we feel fellowship, bonds of love, and encouragement.  Instead of stumbling in our sin and wondering how we will get back into a right relationship with God, there is a hand of a brother or sister reaching out to help us to get back on track.  Instead of looking around and worrying about what others think of us, we are surrounded by the community of the faithful, who know we are all broken and sinful, yet love us unconditionally anyway.

Once we enter into the family of God, our future is secure.  We no longer worry about the things of this world.  We no longer chase after things that do not last.  Our goal and our focus become growing in our faith and in our relationships, both with Christ and with one another.  Each day becomes a gift back to God, seeking to honor and bless Him in all we do.


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Ever Closer

Reading: John 14: 25-27

When the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, we are made a new creation.  We are born again, not of flesh and bone but of the Spirit.  When we can claim this new birth, offered and paid for through Christ’s work on the cross, we are justified.  Being justified or made right with God means that the punishment we deserve for our sins is forgiven.  Once we are justified we are now part of God’s new creation.  Through the power of the cross, and out of God’s unending and unwavering love for us, His forgiveness is given over and over again.  Just as His mercy is new every morning, so too do we become new creations each day.

As our new selves we are freed from the chains of sin and death so that we can begin to grow into the new creation.  We are no longer tethered to the things of this world so we can begin to grow daily in our relationship with Christ.  We can start to become the person God created us to be.  We learn more and more who Christ is and who He calls us to be as we grow in our faith.  To do so we need to be taught and guided and redirected at times.  To help us on our journey, the Holy Spirit comes into our lives.  When we proclaim Jesus and Lord, the Spirit enters into our being and becomes our teacher.

Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would do two things.  It would first teach us all we need to know and that it would bring us peace.  On our journey to become more and more like Christ, there is much we need to learn.  The Holy Spirit is our constant companion, revealing, reminding, correcting, guiding, and teaching us as we move along the path to spiritual maturity.  On this journey we also come to understand better and better that God’s love for us never fails.  We come to know that we can do nothing to make Him love us more or to love us less.  This brings peace.  Peace to know that when we struggle and even when we fail, He still loves us.  His mercies never fail.  This day may the Spirit draw us ever closer to Jesus, the perfector of our faith, the one true way.


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New Creations

Reading: John 14: 8-17 and 25-27

In today’s passage, Jesus promises the disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Like most of us, Philip wants the gift now.  He asks Jesus to show them the Father.  And in a familiar pattern, Jesus patiently explains that He has been showing them the Father all along.  Jesus explains that the words and the works are because the Father is in Him and He is in the Father.  Then Jesus tells them again of this gift of the Holy Spirit.  With this gift the disciples will experience the indwelling presence of God and Jesus within them.  And not only will it be in the disciples, but the Spirit will allow them to do even greater works than Jesus did.  The presence of the Holy Spirit is just one more step in bringing the new creation into being.

Jesus was also a step.  In His example and in the works He did, Jesus began the process of making all things new.  In His teachings He showed a new way, a better way – the way of love.  In truly loving others, we reveal the true nature of God.  Jesus also began the new creation by restoring people.  For some it was a physical restoration: the blind see, the lame walk, the mute speak.  For some, like the lepers, there was also an emotional healing as they were restored to the community as well.  For still others, the restoration was the first steps to returning to a relationship with God.  Jesus was making all things new, providing a glimpse of what the new heaven and earth will be like.

Jesus continued this work with the gift of the Holy Spirit to the disciples at Pentecost and to all who have called on Him as Lord and Savior ever since.  The same Spirit dwells in each of us, giving us the power to reveal the new creation that is in motion.  Through our lives, words, actions, and deeds, people in our lives can begin to see, understand, and experience what Jesus offers: to be made a new creation.  May we be willing servants in the building of His kingdom here on earth.


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Planner Extraordinaire

Reading: Acts 2: 1-21

God is a planner and schemer extraordinare.  The coming of the Holy Spirit came at a time and place that He chose.  A day or two earlier or later and the impact would have been vastly different.  And just like the doctor that can understand all the medical and physical events with his patient except for how the cancer is suddenly gone, we too must simply smile and chalk one up for God.

Thousands of years prior God had promised Abraham that His descendants would be as numerous as the stars.  Then hundreds of years later, once God’s people were settled into the Promised Land, He began Shavuot, a festival that would draw all faithful Jews from all over the known world to Jerusalem.  When God put these two events into motion, I believe He had already planned the day of Pentecost.

God clearly had a plan.  As those first disciples gathered and the Holy Spirit descended upon them, God also produced a wind loud enough to draw a large crowd.  Only by God’s divine hand would that crowd be a group of devout Jews from all over the world.  The Holy Spirit that had descended caused the disciples to speak the Word of God in each person’s native tongue.  Imagine the impact this had as each foreigner first picked up their language being spoken and then tuned in to hear the Word proclaimed!  Each one would have two amazing stories to tell: one of these simple Galileans speaking a language they did not know and, two, the story of the powerful Gospel.  3,000 believed and were baptized that day after Peter stood and preached the Gospel.  3,000 were ready to go back home, to carry the story of Jesus to the ends of the earth.  What a plan!

God has a plan for each of us as well.  May our eyes be open and our hearts willing to speak the words that one who crosses our path needs to hear today.  May we be open to the Holy Spirit’s guidance and may we faithfully speak the Words of Life that the Spirit brings to our lips!


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Clothed with Power

Reading: Luke 24: 44-53

Spending time in the Bible, reading and meditating and studying, is important in developing our faith.  It is important in developing our relationship with Jesus and in understanding our call to discipleship.  In the Bible we find not only great examples of personal discipleship in the faithful such as Abraham and Ruth, but we also find great examples of public discipleship in the faithful such as Paul and Peter.

If we choose to call Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, then we too must follow both the personal and the public call to witness to our faith.  After His death and resurrection Jesus spent time teaching and building up the disciples so that they would be prepared to go forth.  He unpacked the scriptures for them so that they fully understood Jesus’ role as the fulfillment of the Old Testament.  They had no doubt that He was the Word made flesh, that He was the alpha and omega, that He was the king of kings, that He was God’s Son, and that He was the only way to eternal life.

It was this knowledge and faith and belief that filled the disciples with confidence.  They eagerly awaited the coming of the Holy Spirit as they returned to Jerusalem.  There was a new hope and excitement in them as they anticipated being ‘clothed with power from on high’.  Jesus had packed them full of tools, knowledge, and faith so that when the Spirit came upon them, they would be ready to witness to the ends of the earth.

Daily we too can meet Jesus to fill ourselves with the tools, knowledge, and faith.  In our Bibles we find all we need to grow in our personal discipleship and to go forth to offer our public discipleship. Once we invite the Holy Spirit to dwell in us and to lead and guide us, we too will be clothed with power from on high, ready to  be His light and love in our world.


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Come!

Reading: Revelation 22: 12-14, 16-17, 20-21

Today’s reading comes from the last chapter of the last book of the Bible.  To me it is full of hope and promise; it is the ‘why’ to living as a faithful follower of Jesus Christ.  At the very beginning, in Genesis 1, there is the same sense of hope and promise as God creates the world and all that is in it.  God created in perfection, with each act being deemed ‘good’.  To me this not only speaks of God’s desire for His children to find joy, peace, contentment, and love in this life but also of His ultimate promise of what will once again be.  In this we find our hope.  In the closing words of the Bible, we are invited to return to and to participate in the return of Jesus, to enter the new paradise that will come with His return.

Jesus identifies Himself in today’s text as the beginning and the end. He was there at the start of creation and will be there again when all is restored and made new.  Sometimes though, we look at the blip of almost 30 years as Jesus’ only time here between the first and last of times.  But in reality He is always present here on earth.  Through the actions of the Holy Spirit and through the lives of His followers, Jesus is a constant presence here in our world.  The invitation to ‘Come!’ is one we as His disciples need to continue to call out to all who are thirsty and in need of the free gift that Jesus Christ offers.

This free gift that comes through faith in Jesus is the first step to living into the joy, peace, contentment, and love that God desires each of us to find.  Through the blood that He shed on the cross we can find grace and mercy to lay our sins and burdens down so that forgiveness washes them away and restores us to a right relationship with God.  This allows us each day to be clean and pure and Holy.  This allows us to face the temptations and struggles of life knowing that every day Jesus continues to say, ‘Come!’  As we live in this reality and hear this call every day, may we too call out to others, inviting them to ‘Come!’ and to know Jesus.


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For His Glory

Reading: Acts 1: 1-11

All too often we are like the disciples.  Jesus tells them that they will soon receive the Holy Spirit.  He has taught and built them up so that they can carry on His work as they go out to share the good news and to build the church.  He has told them that it is better that He goes so that the Holy Spirit can come.  It is now their moment to shine.  And they ask if now is the time He will restore the kingdom of Israel.  I can just see Jesus’ head drop and His shoulders slump as He let’s out a long sigh.

We too have the promise of the Spirit dwelling in us.  Once we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior then the Holy Spirit enters our heart and seeks to lead and guide us.  We are reminded in scripture that the Spirit will give us what we need, the words to say, the thoughts to share.  We are told that God will never put us in a situation we cannot handle and that He will never give us more than we can bear.  Yet we don’t always live into these things.  We too ask, “God, won’t you just do this for me?”

We cannot expect the kingdom to grow if we are not willing to be co-laborers with God.  We cannot begin by pursuing our own agenda, hoping that God will join us somewhere along the way.  Our God is a big God and can alter our life anytime He wants to bend us to His will.  But that is not how He operates.  He desires our love, our obedience, our willingness to serve.  It is when we offer all of these and when we prayerfully seek His lead that we can make the greatest impact for His kingdom.  Each day we must strive to offer our all to God.  Each day we must hand all control over to Him.  It is then that we begin to live for His glory.


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Mentors

Reading: John 14: 25-29

As we go through life, especially when we are younger, we find people that mentor and shape us.  They are people who  see something in us worth investing some of themselves in.  They usually are older and have been through a little bit more of life so they carry wisdom and expertise with them.  They are kind and loving and sacrificial people.  Mentors help us navigate our careers, our families and relationships, our faith.  If we have been mentored we are likely to become a mentor ourselves.

Jesus himself was a mentor.  For the disciples and undoubtedly others who followed Him, Jesus mentored many in their faith and how to live it out.  Indirectly Jesus continues to mentor each of us as we read His Word and apply it to our lives.  But Jesus also knew that the disciples and eventually we would need more than memories or the written recording of them.  He knew we would need an active and alive presence to continue to mold, shape, and guide us.  So Jesus gave mankind the gift of the Holy Spirit.  To all who call on Jesus as Lord and Savior, the Spirit comes and dwells within them.  Once there the Spirit is the constant presence of Jesus, reminding us and teaching us about Jesus and the example He set.

As we think about the people who have poured into our lives, at some point we must also begin to become aware of those around us who could use someone to mentor and shape them.  Other people have poured into us so that one day we too could pour into others.  As we seek this our may we be open to how the Spirit guides and leads us in this as well, always remaining a willing and humble servant.


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Faithful to Minister

Reading: Acts 16: 13-15

When Paul and company arrive in Philippi, they go down to the river because they think it may be a place to pray.  The city has no synagogue or church.  They find some women there praying and they strike up a conversation with them.  God is continuing to guide and lead Paul as he continues to work to spread the gospel.

It turns out these women are praying to God, so they are open to hearing Paul’s witness about Jesus.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Paul’s words hit home in one of the women’s hearts.  Lydia and her household believe and are baptized into Christ.  This encounter leads her to open her home to these traveling evangelists.  Lydia provides the base of operations from which Paul and companions can continue to share the gospel.

Each day of our lives God and the Holy Spirit lead us to opportunities to share our faith in Jesus Christ with others.  Every day.  It may be that our faithful witness comes simply through how we live our lives.  Those around us experience Jesus simply by being in our company.  At other times we are called to verbally witness to our faith.  One of those who have been observing may finally ask by we are so loving, caring, compassionate…  Or maybe one is finally open to the conversation we have tried to start a few times and God leads us in the witnessing to our faith.

There are many people searching for meaning in and a center for their lives.  God is the only one who can truly fill these needs in us and only He can bring true contentment, peace, understanding, …  Paul’s vision was of a man calling him to Macedonia.  When he arrived, God placed Lydia before him.  Paul was faithful to minister to who God placed before him.  May we too be willing to minister to whomever God places before us and to witness to our faith to any and all that God brings our way.


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Step Out

Reading: Acts 16: 9-12

When was the last time you felt God calling you to do something or when you felt the nudge of the Holy Spirit?  Depending on how in tune we are to our relationship with God, the guidance and nudges and whispers can come frequently.  These connections are like everything else in our lives: the more we try and allow ourselves to hear and sense God, the better we become at sensing and hearing His presence and guidance in our lives.

In the text today, Paul has a vision calling him to a new place of ministry.  He had been struggling with where to go next so this vision would have been like an answer to prayer.  For Paul the call was clear as day.  They get up in the morning, pack up, and head out for Macedonia.  New place, new people, new challenges.  Lots of unknowns.  Paul did not hesitate.  As one deeply in tune with God and the Spirit, God spoke and Paul went.

God sometimes calls us in a similar way.  He puts a call upon our heart and we feel the tugs to respond.  Or maybe it comes in an almost audible whisper from the Holy Spirit or in a nudge we can almost physically feel.  There is no denying that we all sense, feel, hear God’s calling and leading.  And there is no denying that at times we ignore, dismiss, … this call and leading.  We allow the fears, doubts, and unknowns to keep us in our safe, comfortable, easy place.  Step out.  We need to step out in faith and with the confidence that God goes before and that the Spirit walks alongside us.

We were each created to be used by God.  Each of us was created with our own gifts and talents for a purpose.  As we allow God and the Spirit to move in our lives, we are freed to experience and share the amazing power of God transforming our lives and the lives of those around us.  Step out and step into God’s plan for your life.