Can You Handle The Truth?
Good Morning Friends,
The promise of the Paraclete is powerful and frankly can be a bit frightening for this person of the Trinity is designed to change and transform people through the veracity of a relationship. Can You Handle The Truth?
Scripture: “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning. But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them. “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.
Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned. “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
John 15:26-27; 16:4-15 (NRSV)
Message: As the world turns its attention to a Royal Wedding we also turn our attention this weekend to the birthday of the Church and the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Day of Pentecost is depicted as a fire and as a wind and as a raw and consuming power…and as a dove coming down to earth. But the Holy Spirit is not an event that comes only at Pentecost or on a personal basis at our baptism, but rather in the person of God and the power of life moving in us and through us, giving us being and changing us from the inside with its truth for individuals, as well as for communities of believers. The Spirit descends upon our hearts in a marriage of sorts. And this union with the Spirit teaches us the truth about God, and truth about the world in which we live and the truth about ourselves living in the tension between the two. Specifically, the Holy Spirit teaches us the truth about sin and the consequences of the world’s rejection of Jesus. The Holy Spirit also comes and influences us of our need for righteousness…not the world’s righteousness of good looks, wealth, position and power, but the righteousness that empowers us for mission and ministry as we seek to celebrate and share God’s love and grace. Friends, the Holy Spirit teaches us the truth about righteousness as we seek to share and celebrate God’s love and grace. And as followers of Christ, we are to seek this compassion and justice as we stand against all that opposes compassion and justice in ourselves, our businesses and congregations, local governments and our nation and the nations of the world. Friends, the Spirit descends upon our hearts with the truth of judgement to help us to love as we ought to love. Here, the resurrection is God’s judgement declared upon the world and the truth of compassion the decision. Friends, we know the temptation to which the world has succumbed and we too are tempted. Yet God affirms Jesus gifting this path of compassion and justice, and the Spirit within us reveals the path to which God has called us. We are called to embrace the truth with love.
Pray we realize that we cannot handle the truth on our own but need the grace of God, the gift of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit infusing us with love. Pray the Holy Spirt reveals the truth of God’s love, righteousness and judgement to overpower our sins. Pray we seek the source of truth that leads us into all truths. Pray the Holy Spirit is revealed to us as a person with character traits and a purpose founded in a divine relationship. Pray we learn to depend upon the Holy Spirit. Pray we be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. Pray we embrace the truth of the Scripture. Pray the profound words of the Bible instruct us about the Spirit of Truth. Pray the Holy Spirit verifies the claims of Jesus in us. Pray the Holy Spirit instills in us and indwells in us the very way, the truth and the life of Christ manifested in love.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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