Pentecost Continues! R.D.Ice 9/12/2003
Greetings from Union
Road , Barbour County , West Virginia Church
of Christ
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
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
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