the power of pentacost

When the Holy Spirit arrived, He took the form of a rushing wind that filled the whole house and landed upon the heads of each disciple within the upper room, and then appeared in the form of fire.  It was the day of Pentecost, a Holy Day celebrated as the pouring out of God’s Holy Spirit upon the Church.
 
So why did the Father and Son send forth the Holy Spirit to indwell the members of the Church, the body of Christ?  Because it was customary that when a King ascended to His throne, He gives gifts. In this case, Jesus Christ sent the sevenfold Spirit of God to distribute to the members of His army spiritual gifts so that men might be empowered to persist in the great commission.  He commanded, “Go into all the world and make disciples of men baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” (See I Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4.)
 
How should we understand this great commission? It is the completion of the Holy War begun by Jesus Christ in His earthly ministry and culminated by His death and resurrection. When I say war, I am referring to the direct way that living and speaking the gospel of Jesus Christ confronts the ideas and knowledge of the world. It is a clash of ideas that has the power to change and transform men in their thinking and understanding, and thereby it is spiritual warfare.
 
In meditating upon the verse, “How shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard” (Romans 10:14), Dallas Willard wrote the following in his book, Renovation of the Heart: “Without correct information, our ability to think has nothing to work on. Indeed, without the requisite information, we may be afraid of thinking at all, or simply incapable of thinking straight.” … “The Gospel of Jesus directly repudiates all false information about God and, therewith, about the meaning of human life; and it works to undermine the power of those ideas and images that structure life away from God. But for it to have this effect we must use our ability to think.”
 
The Holy Spirit gives godly men and women the gifts of spiritual wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing ministry, miracles, prophecy, the power to discern spirits, the ability to speak in tongues and the ability to interpret them. These gifts operate first within the ordained offices of the Apostolic ministry as Christ gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, and some teachers for the equipping of the Saints for the work of ministry. But we are all called to work along side the Father as the body of Christ to transform men’s thinking to the knowledge of God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son.
 
Our commission as sons and daughters of the King is to put to good use the gift of the Holy Spirit, to live out the high call of the Kingdom in our worship and in our daily lives. 

We hope you will celebrate this important holy feast with your church family this Sunday!

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