Tuesday, October 9, 2012

PENTECOST CONTINUES


Pentecost Continues!   R.D.Ice 9/12/2003

Greetings from Union Road, Barbour County, West Virginia.  We Church of Christ folk are not "Pentecostals" (yet Spirit-filled) but neither are we "Jehovah Witnesses" (who seem to deny the Spirit).  We recognize God The Holy Spirit.  And Campbell wrote of Jehovah the Father, Jehovah the Don, Jehovah the Holy Spirit [in The Christian System]. We understand we are not to "quench the Spirit."  But we may have done things to "quench" Him and be doing it now.  I have put together a number of things in this folder.  You should read with discretion.  But do as the noble Bereans did and search the Scriptures to see whether these things are true.  Someone has said: "It is right to learn, even from an enemy."  And, "God may speak to you through someone you did not expect to speak."  We join our brothers & sisters in Christ around the world to pray for Revival, Renewal and Spiritual Awakening!  Yours in Christ, R.D.Ice.
 

            The Bible speaks of GOD who is One.  God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit.  Yet God is One.  "Pentecost continues in the Lord's Supper as we eat and drink in the Kingdom of God."  We should begin our faith from John 3:17.  The Eternal Word came, not to condemn the world, but to be the world’s Savior.  And Peter speaks of abundant salvation.

 

         John wrote: "Before the world was created, the Word already existed; he was with God and he was the same as God.  From the very beginning the Word was with God.  Through him God made all things; not one thing in all creation was made without him.  The Word was the source of life, and this life brought light to mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out."  John 1:1-5 GNB.  Compare Hebrews 1:1-3; 1 John 1:1-4.

 

         Pessimism and a sense of defeat are in vogue today.  The world is filled with a morose negative spirit.  Even Christians are spreading doom and gloom, though this be the negation/denial of everything they might be expected to believe.  But a real Christian should be a man of hope.  The apostle Peter went so far as to say that a disciple of Christ Jesus should always be ready with an answer  "to explain the hope you have in you"  (1 Peter 3:15).  Hope is a vital factor and a component of who we are - our very being.  However, nowadays, in certain quarters, hope has gotten a bad press.  People are suspicious that hope is just an excuse or tranquilizer to distract us from the problems that face us and threaten us.

 

         Christianity means hope!  We must take hold of hope once again and restore hope to its rightful place.  Hope is today, as it always has been, a Christian virtue.  Hope is vital to our relationship to God.  Hope is an "anchor of the soul" (Hebrews 6:19).  Hope reaches through the veil of the heavenly temple into the most holy place!  This means that hope is a living reality within us which has its source in God and relies on God - God alone.  Hope makes mockery of our hopes and fears, our weighty statistics, our probability charts, our predictions and evaluations of the future.  Hope goes its own way despite our beliefs.  "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord" (Isaiah 55:8).

 

         God is the "Master of the impossible" who draws straight with crooked lines.  He even uses the "wrath of man" to praise Himself (Psalms 76:10).  In spite of what seem to be woeful setbacks, God leads all things for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:26-28).  Hope is the daughter of the God who refuses to be stuffed into a pigeonhole and who knows how to overcome obstacles by making them His servants.

 

         "They have taken away the church of my childhood" some have said.  But memories are not always accurate and changes sometimes need to be made to bring us back to and closer to God.  Be of good courage!  The power of God The Holy Spirit is at work deep within the heart of His church.  HE is breathing into her (the church) a new and fresh youthfulness.  Let us pray for Holy Joy, Christian Love, and all the Fruit of The Spirit!  God The Spirit is our hope for the future!  We are being molded into a "habitation of God in the Spirit" (Ephesians 2:19-22).

 

         As the disciples prepared for Pentecost, they were gathered in an upper room "to pray as a group" (Acts 1:13-14).  As the disciples lifted their voice in prayer (Acts 4:23-31) the place was shaken as evidence that God heard and answered.  We join in prayer: "Lord!  Renew Your wonders in this our day and give us the renewing of Pentecost.  Continue to give us an open door that no one can shut!"

 

         God works through people.  God The Holy Spirit has ways and means of renewal.  As the centuries go by, the Spirit, suddenly and without warning, releases a gulfstream of graces through the actions of some child of His who towers spiritually over his contemporaries.  Many are, or become, radiant witnesses of the presence of God within the church at moments of crisis.

 

         Faith teaches us that suffering is the seed of life (James 1:12-18).  It is perfectly normal, then, that the sufferings of the church at this moment should give rise to great hope.  No day was ever so pregnant with hope for the future as Friday - the day that Jesus was nailed to the cross.  It is a blessed time for the church when she is sustained by nothing other than God Himself.  When the situation is hopeless: this, then, is the hour for hoping.  When we have reasons for hope then we rely on those reasons.  We must rely, not upon reasons, but upon the promise given by God.  We must admit that we are lost, surrender ourselves as lost, and praise the Lord who saves us!  A constant theme in the Book of Revcelation is: "Listen to what the Spirit says to the churches."

 

         This moment calls for us to look beyond our easy optimism, all our too human strategies, and to nourish our hope at its source - the word of God.  Everything points to the fact that we are living at a turning point in the history of the church.  God the Holy Spirit is revealing, to a degree unknown before, a mystery of death and resurrection.  We must listen to what the Spirit is telling the churches.  He speaks of the ever necessary reform of structures.  In trying to follow a pattern (as some have defined it), we may be placing the church in a straitjacket.  It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1).  Therefore we are always renewing and reviving the church and ourselves.  We build upon the past, yet we want to answer questions relating to the challenges of today.  "Trust and obey, for there is no other way."

 

         As one has said: "The world today is giving birth, and birth is always accompanied by hope.  We view this present situation with a great Christian hope and a deep sense of our responsibility for the kind of world that will be born of this travail.  This is the hour of the church: united, it must offer to this new world being born, some Christian orientation as to its future."

 

         One in another brotherhood wrote in 1974:  Dan Herr, editor of The Critic, asked me: "Why are you a man of hope, despite the confusion in which we find ourselves today?"  I answered: "Because I believe in God the Holy Spirit."   He asked me to write a letter about this.  He published it on the cover of his periodical.  Here it is in a nutshell.  {I have put it into poem form, RDI.]

 

WHY  DO  YOU  HOPE

 

Stand up and praise the Lord your God!

Praise Him forever and ever!

Let everyone praise His glorious name,

although no human praise

is ever great enough.

 

Today is holy to our Lord,

so don't be sad.

The joy that the Lord gives you

will make you strong.

Do as the Lord says,

and you will be safe from sin.

 

The long history of the church is filled

with the wonders of God The Spirit.

Who would dare to say that the love

and resourcefulness

of God were exhausted?

I believe in the surprises

of God The Holy Spirit.

The ways of His Providence

are by nature surprising.
 
 

We are not prisoners of "fate,"

nor of the gloomy predictions

of sociologists

and those who peer into the future.

 

We must therefore be ready

to expect

the unexpected

from God!

 

Think of the prophets and

the great men and women

of old.

Who, in times of darkness,

discovered a spring of grace

and shed beams of light on our path.

 

I am a man of hope - not

from human reasons

nor from a natural optimism.

God is here, near us,

unforeseeable and loving,

working in the world

at this very minute.

 

To hope is a duty, not a luxury.

To hope is not to dream,

but to turn dreams into reality.

Blessed are those who dream dreams

and are ready

to pay the price

to make them come true.

 

To those who welcome Him

He gives each day fresh liberty

and renewed joy and trust!!!

I am a man of hope!

I believe in God The Holy Spirit!

I claim the promises of the Lord!

 

Keep on asking, seeking, knocking,

Luke records Jesus as saying this.

And don't you think the Father

who conceived you in love

will give the Holy Spirit when you ask Him?"

[Luke 11:9-13]

 

    “If you the, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”  Luke 11:13