What is Your Image of the Power of God in His Church?

What is Your Image of the Power of God in His Church?

Good Morning Friends,

Today is Pentecost Sunday, the Easter Season has ended. Today the fulfillment of the Feast of Pentecost is celebrated in the coming of the Holy Spirit and in the formation of the Church. Words rarely do justice to the topic of the Church or the Holy Spirit. Describing our relationship with God the Father, the Body of the church, Jesus and the Spirit that binds us together is difficult at best. For the frozen chosen I think the common experience of the Holy Spirit is of the spirit of grace conceived at our baptism and birthed as our fruits mature and we witness to our faith. But people experience the Holy Spirit in a variety of ways and how you experience the Spirit might be and should be in some ways different than how I do. The hope is that however we experience this love, the person of the Holy Spirit, that this gift, this miracle might produce in us something that builds up the body, the church. I for one experience this universal love though grace not judgment, transformation not information, and joys not fears. Today’s devotional is a testimony to and witness of the reality of a mother’s love…a father’s love…a family. What is Your Image of the Power of God in His Church?

Scripture: 7So Moses came, summoned the elders of the people, and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. ⁸The people all answered as one: ‘Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do.’ Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord. ⁹Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after.’

Exodus 19:7-9a (NRSV)

⁵and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Romans 5:5(NRSV)

⁴John the baptizer appeared^* in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. ⁶Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. ⁸I have baptized you with^* water; but he will baptize you with^* the Holy Spirit.’

Mark 1 4-8 (NRSV)

22By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

Galatians. 5:22–23 (NRSV)

2When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Acts2:1-4 (NRSV)

Message: The gift of the Holy Spirit that descended on Jesus at His baptism and was shared at Pentecost is experienced by believers today when the Spirit’s purpose is served in acts of faith and hope and love and unity. This is the nature of God’s plan witnessed at Pentecost. Here God demonstrates the plan to possess the earth through a united Body composed of frail humans…like you and like me. So today we listen for, long for, the taste and sight of the fruit of the Spirit in the celebration. We savor the thought of milk and honey, of wine and bread, in God’s Word and celebrate our walk to the feast that itself reveals the progressive work of Christ and His plan of salvation in our lives. Today we anticipate the first fruits of God’s harvest. Today we offer our first fruits to join with others in service. On Pentecost the Holy Spirit came so that the Church could be Jesus’ presence in his absence. When the disciples could no longer follow an earthly Jesus, Jesus sent them and us something to bind us together in Christian love. He sent us the Holy Spirit so we would have the advantage and ability collectively to show the world the power of being in unity.

Pray for community formed by the Holy Spirit. Pray that we appreciate that God loves by his Spirit. Pray that even though we are a faltering, bumbling community of followers, we also are a visible community that represents Him to the world…not as a glory cloud, or as Man subject to death but as His creative breath…as a Spirit melding together in His new Body. Pray that the presence of God shows up in our lives like the fire and wind of Mt. Sinai…like the love of a mother for a child. Pray that now not just one person would share in the presence of God’s power, purity and presence but that the New Covenant would be in each of us. Pray God would build us together into a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit. Pray the Spirit would take up residence in our hearts. Pray we experience with all our senses the truth of our recreation in Christ….His love and His law. Pray we reflect an image of the Power of the Holy Spirit.

Blessings,

John Lawson