As the Spirit enabled them ACTS 2:4 Exams are looming for various people at the moment, and itmeans lots of study and revision backed up by their course work.It’s a skill we all need to grasp not just at college.
It takes a week of intensive lessons to drive a car, 12 years to become a hospital consultant’, 5 years to become a barrister. Depending on the route to the job it can take 1300 hrs of flight and study to produce a commercial pilot. To learn a language – forever in my case.
One thing I can say with confidence is that learning is life long; each of us will have a lot to learn about our world and homes, and our faith. It will take time and some things will be harder than others. It applies to faith, the new heating system and even using the banks (who knew).
On the day of Pentecost the disciples and indeed the whole church were given new skills, they didn’t even have a crash course. God enabled them to do a number of things that helped the church grow quickly and effectively. Languages, prophecy, healing, to name but some of the gifts that were given to these men and women.
And as a result three thousand came to Christ after hearing Peter and the disciples proclaim the word of God – in their own languages. All that time saved – things made easy by God our saviour.
This is the birthday of the church because on Pentecost people began working with God’s spirit in partnership. They weren’t enslaved or turned into zombies. They could at any moment opt out of what God was doing with them.
Some people say today “well what happened? We don’t see these things today – we still have to learn Spanish before we go on our holidays”. Tongues are for the work the kingdom not for recreational use. But God’s Spirit is very much with us if we open up to his leading, but we need to read the instruction book.
There will be something for all of us to love, support and even challene those who are coming to faith. But also there will be those things we never get the hang of – its true for all of us, but perhaps we never put the time in to receive; God has given instruction for spiritual gifts on the house.
The disciples did have to respond to receive the Holy Spirit – Jesus had told them to wait on the Spirit, to remain in the city. When the day of Pentecost came they were all together in one place. A wind came with tongues of fire that rested on each of them and they began to speak in other languages as the spirit gave enabled them.
They began to speak- they did something in trust before God and God used that as they worked together. They could opt out at any moment; opt out of what God was doing with them. When is the last time we opted in – when was the last time we waited and really gave time to work with God’s spirit?
How much of what we do trundles along without waiting for God’s spirit? A church was having a huge communion table with the proclamation ‘He is here with us’ the suppliers got their verses mixed up and thought of the resurrection and when the table came it said ‘He is not here, He has risen.’ Well yes He has but we are not
left alone He is with us through the Holy Spirit.
We can learn of Christ and his love for everyone – we need to continue that journey as well and opt in to work with the Holy Spirit each day
Every Blessing Brian