Fire and the Presence of God
Today at MCC we celebrated Pentecost Sunday and talked about what it means to the church. In Acts 2:1-12, we read about when the promised Holy Spirit came to the disciples in the form of tongues of fire on their heads. Before Jesus left, He told the disciples to go out and and preach the gospel, but first, they were to wait for the Holy Spirit who would come and be their Helper. This gift - to be baptized with the Holy Spirit - offered the disciples 3 things:1. The power and courage they needed to spread the Word.
2. It allowed divisions to be mended. The first thing we see when the Holy Spirit comes is a reversal of what happened at Babylon - everyone heard the disciples speaking in their own language.
3. They all had a personal experience with God - they each had a flame over their head. In the Old Testament, fire was a sign of the presence of God.
These are all available to the church today and are necessary for the church to grow. The disciples baptized 3000 people the very day the Holy Spirit came! We talked about what the Holy Spirit means in our lives - He gives us peace, He intercedes for us, He convicts us to do things, He empowers us to be graceful. I appreciate also how the Holy Spirit helps us to recognize God's presence and grace in our lives.
"And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you." John 14:16-17
posted by Jewels @ 3:25 PM
4 Comments:
The sermon we heard up north on Pentecost Sunday also emphasized that Pentecost assures us that God always keeps his promises. Joel 2:28-32. Missed MCC on Sunday! Skip
empowers to be graceful ... something nobody would expect, an empowerment to be graceful, wow.
I missed that. Empowered to be graceful. Thanks for pointing that out! Could that also be empowered to be grace filled? Skip
He probably meant empowered to be gracious, or grace filled.
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