Pentecost is the convergence of the righteous law and infinite mercy of God's divine grace. In my poem I use the word 'fire of love' to describe the Holy Spirit for the SPIRIT of God is a kindling flame - a fire that cannot be quenched from the world - it moves - it guides and it spreads love in our hearts like a wildfire - a wildfire - not of destruction but a fire that burns our sinful ways to ash and allows a new seed of love - love in Christ and the Triune God in our hearts.
God is three in one. God is Christ, God is the Holy Spirit - each are revelations of our Father's infinite nature of grace, justice and love. The Holy Spirit is God's indwelling of HIMSELF within our hearts - an unfailing GPS that if we listen and submit to the Holy will of the Spirit we will not only discover heavenly peace - but bear fruit abundantly - fruit of God is not the fruit of greed and ego - but love, peace, charity, fortitude, compassion...God works his TRUTH through the Holy Spirit.
Pentecost falls on the forty-ninth day after Easter (the fiftieth if you count Easter day - pente is equivalent to fifty). For nine days after Christ's ascension into heaven the disciples prayed and waited patiently for the promised descent of the Holy Spirit. God's timing was symbolically positioned on Pentecost - which is the Greek translation for the Jewish feast of Shavuot - which celebrates the handing down of the LAW through the Torah. By giving us the grace of the Holy Spirit, God fulfilled his prophetic promises of salvation and to write the law on the hearts of men.
Christ was a perfect sacrifice. His life without sin secured the grace of the Spirit for all mankind. Because the flesh is incapable of keeping the law and living a sinless life, GRACE is the only restoration fully communion with God. In Grace we are forgiven - grace is a gift - a free gift of love. It is not by the merit of our own works we are forgiven, yet by the grace of Christ's blood and Holy Trinity.
Does this mean we get a free pass - NO! A Jewish Rabbi I took a class with said he thought Christians focus too much on Grace with the gift of the law is a guide for righteous living and practical living right here in this realm and loving our neighbor as ourselves - the end game is not heaven but a life of peace on earth.
I actually agree with the Rabbi in many ways and I think he did not understand the truth of Grace in Christianity - many Christians abuse the power of Grace in the Spirit. Grace means we are forgiven from sin without merit, but to receive grace we have to be willing to confess to God with a humble heart - when you are truly compelled and filled with the Holy Spirit you are driven to pursue the law and to strive for peace. The law is perfect, man is not, but we must still strive for righteousness and can be lead closer to righteousness through the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Rabbi told me that The Holy Spirit is our guidepost - I agree - the Holy Spirit purges us so that we are holy. No longer does the Spirit of God live in a Temple of stone and mortar, but we are a Temple to God and when the Spirit of God lives in our hearts we must live by his love - and strive to be righteous - when you have grace you are compelled to want to do right, to be a better person, to give more freely. T
The Holy Spirit has always existed and always will exist - his nature is infinite - HE is the Father and in the Son - Three in one. The SPIRIT is spoken of in the Hebrew Scriptures and is tantamount in Jewish faith as the wisdom of God - The Spirit helped form the world - and all of creation.
For verses on the Spirit at work
It seems unfathomable that on Pentecost God descended into the hearts of humanity - the Spirit worked beside them before - at the temple and in prophecy - but at Pentecost the breath of God descended on humanity in active love and the fire of truth. Just think for a second - the breath of the Holy Spirit inside you is God living in your heart - what peace and hope and bold humility should that ignite in our souls! In John 14 - Jesus promises to make a home with us in our hearts - The Holy Spirit is part of this promise - God is our home.
This compels me to strive for peace - even if I fall short in striving for peace my character grows deeper roots in God's glorious love and the mercy of Christ and the wisdom of the SPIRIT and the Word.
John 14: Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper,[f] to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be[g] in you.18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.
The Holy Spirit is more than our conscience. God has given all of human creation a conscience - a moral reasoning to understand right and wrong - the Holy Spirit is a counselor, a guide, a map, a guardian - a peacekeeper in our hearts. The Holy Spirit can only stay with us if we seek forgiveness and try to live peaceful lives - the Holy Spirit has a high tolerance for our sin by the blood of Christ's redemption - but if we blaspheme against the spirit we are condemning ourselves because we are choosing to forsake peace.
I struggle with peace of mind - I am always an advocate of peace with other people - I love God's creation and am blessed to serve others - but I have been in dark places of the soul where I cried out in hate - hate for myself and disgust that God did not move the way I thought he should - particularly when I was forsaken by my family - it took a long road to realize peace by the spirit is not safety in the world, but rather the unquenchable hope and surety that you are never along in obstacles - your soul is safe even in the troubles of the flesh and you are led to the promise of glory.
The past few months I was frustrated that I could not hear my intuition - the Holy Spirit is my intuition nine times out of ten - the whisper I need to tune into. I am an INFJ - highly logical and analytical but in that range of emotion I also am driven by intuition. When my intuition is off - I feel lost. I prayed to God that I could hear the SPIRIT's will - instead all I heard was the worry and agonizing fear in my mind about temporal life affairs such as finances and job insecurity.
God through the SPIRIT cares about these things, but the primary goal of God is saving our soul...when I was walking in the park I demanded 'God tell me your will!' I heard a whisper shout: How can you hear me when you have so many voices shouting at the same time, set down your worry and rely on me.
I continue to work through this daily, but with each chipping away of worry I find release in the Spirit and the peace of God flows like a living river of hope into my soul - I am nourished and without fear.
It is hard to know when the Holy Spirit is speaking to us - but if you listen and prayerfully ask for discernment God will give you clarity. God is not a God of confusion but of peace. We are the one's driven into fear. The only fear we should have is displeasing God - the thing that displeases God the most (I think) is not confiding to HIM and speaking honestly in confession. He'll wait, but the longer we wait - the more stress and anger we allow to build up. It is like finding out you have cancer and ignoring it. God can cleanse the pain and transform you by the SPIRIT - but we must be willing to fully submit.
When judging an insight from the Holy Spirit - ask: does it align with scripture and God's law - because God's law is still steadfast. Christ obeyed the law for grace, but the law stands true. Does the intuition bring you closer to God or to the world? Often I do not like what the Spirit says - especially about worrying about temporal things because I am driven by the flesh - and the flesh is weak - seeing only temporal timelines instead of the infinite grace and majesty of God.
The world is so fractured today because so many people fight battles out of the flesh - and many of the battles are buffered by a false claim that The Holy Spirit is guiding them. I look to the Middle East and the war in Syria, the persecution in Nazi Germany - when many who claimed to be Christians turned a blind eye (many Christians stood up - but any Christian filled with the Holy Spirit would find any such evil detestable and use the Spirit of love and the fruits of the Spirit to fight evil).
Many want to point fingers at the Church - Pentecost is the birthday of the church. We are called by Christ to be the salt of the earth and a light to all the nations*(Isaiah, also in Luke 2-Song of Simeon) - a city on a hill...not a church of division and hate, bigotry and self-loathing, greed gospels and wars of state - Christianity is about love and peace - righteousness - yes - but grace is what we shall give through the grace of Christ. We cannot allow the flesh and the princes of this world beckon our ears and hearts to beat - we need to listen to the SPIRIT of our heavenly KING. When we are fully filled with the PEACE of the SPIRIT it is as a dove in flight - it overtakes you - you realize you have been chained in so much grief - grief that spent nothing by time and did nothing to fill your hunger for truth. The Holy Spirit gives wisdom and truth, it gives the thirsty the cup of everlasting love and light - salvation and peace of Christ.
We are a city on a hill - not only as a beacon for how to live - Christ also is warning us that by not living the the SPIRIT of Truth - we are turning souls blind because they cannot perceive grace in the den of sin - they do not see love when Christians sow the seeds of hate and corruption. We are called to a higher standard that the world - but we have an advocate in the SPIRIT who gives us strength for the race - if we are but willing to drink of HIS cup.
Matthew 5: Salt and Light
13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.
14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that[a] they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
We are the light of the world - but we are but a beacon - empowered by the fire of the Holy Spirit who lights our paths and writes TRUTH on our hearts and commands us to walk in the way of Christ and love the law and seek truth in God. The Holy Spirit compels us to follow the law by the love God provides as a father, but we are also given that abiding love of knowing that if we sin and return to God with a contrite heart - he will restore us - the power of the Spirit is our personal relationship - an anchor of light and power to God our Father who we worship and adore with praise and thanksgiving.
We will face trials and tribulations... issues of the flesh that test the spirit from loss of property...loss of limbs, loss of dignity in this world, but with the Holy Spirit we never lose our souls and we find love even in the tumult of an angry suffocating world of evil, malice and pain. So when trials come do not let fear push you towards doubt, but lean in and cry to the Spirit who is there to help you endure the testing - The Holy Spirit is a refining fire that builds character even in difficult circumstances we are made whole by the SPIRIT of peace. The Holy Spirit is the light to kindle an eternal flame to extinguish the darkest corners of all the earth and the aphotic desolation of our souls into love, peace and renewing grace by which we Praise God and seek HIS Righteous law and life.
Come Holy Spirit
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.
V. Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created.
R. And You shall renew the face of the earth.
Beautiful.
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