Fifty days after Easter we celebrate Pentecost. This day is related to the Jewish harvest festival of Shavuot, which remembers and celebrate God giving the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai fifty days after the Exodus from Egypt. For Christians this day remembers and celebrates the pouring out of the Holy Spirit fifty days after the resurrection. It is the birth of the Church, God’s Spirit-filled people.
Pentecost is about the Holy Spirit and His indwelling and empowerment of people. It was to people who already believed in Jesus that the Holy came. He filled them with power from on high and set them loose in the world to witness to the fact that Jesus Christ is alive.
Without the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit there is no church. When the Holy Spirit is not the primary influence on a people, that people, regardless of their beliefs, confessions , and actions, are not the church. The church is that people in whom the Spirit of God dwells, through whom the Spirit of God reflects the reality of Jesus, and in whom God the Father, Maker of heaven and earth is praised, celebrated, and honored.
The gift of the Holy Spirit is central to what Jesus came to do. In John 16:7 Jesus said to His disciples, who were confused about His telling them that He was going to go away, “I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.” Fifty days after His resurrection this promise of Jesus came to pass.
Don’t try to live the Christian life with the presence of the Holy Spirit in you. It won’t work. Power to be what God has called us to be is dependent upon the Holy Spirit whom Jesus gives to us Embrace Him, and let God be God in your life.
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