Displaying items by tag: Pentecost

As we approach Pentecost Sunday, June 9^th, 2019, let’s ask the Lord Jesus for a fresh ‘infilling’ of the person and presence of the Holy Spirit. One of the keys to a powerful intercessory prayer life is ‘praying in the Spirit.’ Dutch Sheets states boldly, “Without a doubt the greatest single key to successful intercession is learning to co-operate with the Holy Spirit allowing him to be all he was sent to be in us!”

 As John the Baptist stated,

“This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ³¹ I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” ³² And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. ³³ I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes in and with the Holy Spirit.” (John 1:30-33)

God-the-Son in our flesh who comes to take away the sin of the world, is also the One who comes to baptize in and with the Holy Spirit.  The two works belong together.  When these two titles are kept together the gospel is really ‘good news.’ Jesus-to-the-rescue takes away sin, and then baptizes humans in and with the Spirit of God. 

The term baptize simply means to ‘immerse.’   The Greek text uses both ‘in’ and ‘with,’ the Holy Spirit. The ’in’ relates to that which we are immersed into, and the ‘with’ speaks of that which saturates us or literally, overwhelms us.  Therefore, Jesus the Baptist dunks us in and drenches us with the very life of the Triune God!

Dallas Willard uses the word ‘engulfment’ to describe this experience.  Jesus promises an engulfment in the Spirit of God.  He promises to clothe us, or dress us with ‘power from on High.’ Jesus of Nazareth, God-in-flesh, redeems us from the power and grip of sin and then baptizes us, immerses us, soaks us, dresses us, saturates us, drenches us, and marinates us with the very Life of the Living God!

When the text says that Jesus ‘baptizes,’ it is in the present tense.  In New Testament Greek the tenses of verbs speak of the time of action and the kind of action.  The ‘present’ tense speaks of continuous action, literally ‘to keep on.’ Jesus is the one who keeps on baptizing in and with the Holy Spirit. In other words, He comes to keep on soaking us, keep on drenching us, keep on immersing us, keep on filling us with the Holy Spirit, until every fiber of our being radiates with the very presence of the Living God!

We see this confirmed in the story of the early church! Jesus promises, “in a few days you will be baptized in and with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (Acts 1:5).  On the day of Pentecost, ‘they were all filled with the Holy Spirit”(Acts 2:4).  And then a few chapters later in Acts 4:31, the text says, “the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 4:31).

Paul says that it is God’s will that we ‘be filled with the Spirit.’ Not just once, twice, but over and over again! 

“Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. ¹⁸ And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,” (Eph. 5:17-18)

Whereas wine can ruin one’s judgment leading to debauchery, in contrast ‘being filled with the Spirit,’ leads to empowerment, self-control and a life exhibiting the fruits of the Holy Spirit! It is the nature of Jesus to keep on giving his life to us.  He fills us and keeps on filling us in stages, ‘grace upon grace’ as John puts it, transforming us from, ‘glory to glory’ as Paul teaches us (2 Cor. 3:18).

Barriers

I believe there are two common reasons why many do not experience the fullness of the Spirit in their lives.  The first is fear.  We fear that if we really open up to Spirit we might be swept up into something beyond our control.  The fact it is, Jesus is beyond our control.  We are talking about the Living Lord Jesus coming to occupy and possess us by the Holy Spirit!  Out of fear we can settle for a form of religion devoid of power.  We try to domesticate the One who is an All-Consuming Fire and settle for the predictable even if it is no longer satisfying. 

The second reason is the lack of hunger.  We think we have all we need.  We are content with what God has done for us, and we no longer come to God desperately needy and poor in Spirit. 

However, the reality is that we need the life of God ever-increasing, ever flowing like a river out of our innermost being (John 7:37-39).  We need to come more and more under the sway and influence of the Holy Spirit! 

We need to be invaded, and permeated, saturated, and flooded with the life of the Spirit in every aspect of our lives!  From the very beginning, God has revealed his passion to give his Very Self to the world. 

The Holy One intends to fill the whole created order with his Glory!  The filling of the Holy Spirit makes fully alive, fully human!  We are finally what we were created to be when filled with and animated by the life of the Triune God! 

In Luke 11, Jesus writes,

“And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

The Father is a good father and gives good gifts to his children.  In our life of prayer we come to him in dependence recognizing we can’t do anything apart from Jesus.

We need HELP! As Alvin VanderGriend states, “The Father is in the prayer-assistance business. He has appointed his Son, Jesus to be our enthroned prayer assistant, and his Holy Spirit to be our indwelling prayer assistant.” Jesus is telling us to ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, knock and keep on knocking for the great Helper, the third person of the Trinity!  

So this Jesus comes as a Lamb- to- the- rescue to take away the sin of the world. And He comes to baptize again and again and again in and with the Holy Spirit.  And whenever he does “there enters into our helplessness and fatigue, ‘a surge of new life,’ and we are freshly empowered, “to do the undoable, to face the un-faceable, to bear the unbearable.” (William Barclay)

Let’s return to the Holy Spirit, turning away from our own works to a total dependence on the Holy Spirit!

Dr Jason Hubbard - Executive Coordinator

International Prayer Connect

Pentecost Sunday is when many celebrate both the power of the Spirit and the birthday of the Church. The Spirit’s power and the life of the Church are always intertwined. On the day of the Spirit’s spectacular arrival among the disciples, 120 Jesus-followers became a church of over 3,000 (over 2,500% growth in one day)! It is because Pentecost is the Church’s birthday that many congregations include church-belonging rituals (confirmations, first communions, baptisms and dedications) in their celebrations. When a congregation commits to celebrating Pentecost, they are declaring that ‘the church is God’s plan A for the world - and there’s no plan B.’ Our individual journeys matter, but they are always part of the larger story God is telling through the people gathering in His name. Pentecost is the birthplace of global missions.

These are important days for God’s plans and purposes for our nation. Pentecost 2017 will be a special celebration. Its roots are from the time the Holy Spirit fell on the disciples on the Jewish feast of Pentecost. In the Jewish calendar, it celebrates the word of God and the Ten Commandments so Pentecost is a celebration of the Word and Spirit. Seventy years on from Smith Wigglesworth’s prophecy about a great outpouring of the Word and Spirit we should approach this time with high expectation. God’s sovereign timing ensures this Pentecost comes at the end of ten days of prayer for Thy Kingdom Come and four days before we have a General Election.

We have said in previous issues of The Pulse that things are changing in the spiritual climate of our nation but there would be contention. We have been savagely attacked with children targeted by terrorists in Manchester and with an unprecedented cyber-attack. We are seeing a rise in broken families, child abuse, addictions and poverty. We are in a time of growing uncertainty. Brexit will cause more uncertainty, around jobs, governance, immigration and the complex impact on our health service, businesses, farming etc. Behind all this we have an economic system that is built on a fragile mound of debt with growing costs for pensions and care.

Terrorists create fear, grief and uncertainty. We live in a society with a fear of man; we frighten ourselves with a continuous diet of violent or distressing films, TV shows and books. We are frightened by other people’s unpredictability– have we upset someone as we drive, by email, by a mistake – and how will they react?

In this uncertainty, as Moses proclaimed, we stand on a rock – and His works are perfect (Deuteronomy: 32.4), David goes further and says God is His rock and His fortress (Psalm 31:2 -3). Psalm 25 adds another dimension “Who is the man who fears the LORD? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose. His soul shall abide in well-being, and his offspring shall inherit the land.

The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear Him, and He makes known to them His covenant.” Psalm 25 12 – 14. The fear of the Lord is mentioned in scripture 365 times – it is an important concept to grasp. It is a fear like that of a child who does not want to let go of Father’s hand, it is the fear of not being aligned with God’s will and purpose, of missing His blessing. It is a deep hunger for God. In these days of uncertainty we are not to have our eyes turned towards the mayhem in the world and the fear of men, we fear the Lord. He is all we need.

Pentecost reminds us of God’s abundance. It also celebrates Shavuot a day of rest when the Jewish people celebrated the bringing in of the grain harvest. Abundance comes from prayer. “God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” 2 Corinthians 9:8.

This an historical time for the United Kingdom. God has stirred up a deep desire for more. Across the country we see town after town and city after city where people are being stirred to pray and bring blessing. In May, we met a young Iranian man with the fire of Jesus in his life who has led five hundred people to Christ; we met a pastor who has covenanted with God that he will not have his lunch until he has led two people to Christ .....and he has not gone hungry! We came across the story of a group training in Reading taking Jesus onto the streets who offered to pray with a Nepalese man who cried and cried and eventually gave his life to Jesus. He then showed the suicide note he had in his pocket because he had come into town to throw himself off a building. This is the mercy of God, the love of God bursting out where anyone will be a channel for Him.

We have been taking Alastair and Marie Petrie around England in May on a Healing the Land tour. They travel globally looking at places where revival has come. They believe we have entered a time of shift, Alastair says all the precursors for a move of God are in place. We heal the land by praying for it to be cleansed of previous sin – idolatry, shed blood, immorality, and disunity. We clear the ground. Then we invite Jesus in, we ask him to touch our hearts deeply and fill us with His spirit. We build our own humility, and strengthen unity, we are transparent and open. Finally, we put all our good ideas and capabilities to one side and ask God to intervene. We depend on Jesus. Indeed this is underpinned and sustained by deep hunger for Him.

So this Pentecost is a special Pentecost to pray “Come Holy Spirit” – fill us to overflowing. Four days later we select a Government that will be overseeing a great move of God in our nation. So we pray for this new government to be open to God and for MPs who will speak up for His Kingdom at a time when so many Kingdom principles are under attack.

These next few days we must all be God chasers. Pray for a Government open to God, and for MPs hungry for Jesus. Pray for a Pentecost of abundance and the fire of the spirit to fall on our churches and towns. Lord stir us up; shift us from prayer apathy to prayer passion. Even so come Lord Jesus.

There are three weeks to go to the election: campaigning, slogans, soundbites, personal attacks, and sensational headlines rather than policies and manifesto commitments. However, Hebrews 12:1b-2a says, ‘Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.’ We need to persevere in prayer for our communities, for our nations, for those who seek election as MPs, and for the new UK Government - especially at this crucial time in our history. When the dates for ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ 2017 were announced, nobody knew there would be an election a few days after Pentecost. Many churches will be praying in a more focussed way just before the election. This would not have happened if this call to prayer had not been issued.