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Holy Spirit Power!


            Easter Sunday is the most exciting day of Christendom.       Every Easter since, Christians the world over have been celebrating the too-good-to-be-true Good News that Christ has risen from the dead.  During the forty days following the first Easter Sunday, Jesus slowly increased the faith of His followers by appearing to them at random appointments transforming them from timid followers to world changers.  On the fortieth day, Jesus ascended into heaven, leaving the promise of the Holy Spirit.  Ten days later, Pentecost Sunday, the Holy Spirit came to the hearts of all believers!

            Pentecost Sunday is this upcoming week.  Compared to Easter and Christmas; yet this day gets little attention from most Christians, yet it is the center of what Christianity is all about.  I think this Sunday memorializes the most extraordinary reality of being a Christian.  Not every Christian was able to be with Jesus and witness His miracles and teaching, but every Christian gets to be one with God the Father and Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit!

            The Holy Spirit changes everything!  The Holy Spirit demonstrates to us what an utterly holy, magnificent and wonderful God is who loves us.  He is not content to tell us who He is and expect us to get it.  He does not just take on our human form and shows us that it is possible to follow God’s instructions perfectly on this earth through Jesus Christ, but also He actually made a way to come and live in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.  Oneness with God is possible because of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus came and took on human form at Christmas.  He died to redeem all who would believe in His work on the cross to overcome our personal sin through faith; He rose to show us that life on this earth is really all about the resurrection to eternal life.  His death made possible the gift of the Holy Spirit.

            The gift of the Holy Spirit is the gift that keeps on giving.  I cannot even begin to share all that He does in and through us in this devotion.  I encourage you to take this week before Pentecost Sunday to open up the gift of the Holy Spirit.  You can start with these passages and discover more for yourself through the power of the Holy Spirit.

1.       Ezekiel 36:26-- I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

2.       John 14:15-18--If you love me, keep my commands.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and 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.  I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

3.       John 16:12-14--I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.  But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.  He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.

4.       Romans 5:5--And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Copyright © 2014  Deborah R. Newman. teatimeforyoursoul.com  All Rights Reserved.

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