When he was in college, Adam had a Music Major. So, Anita and I traveled to the school’s musical programs to support him. The program usually began with students playing with professionals (or at least alumni) in a great orchestra. As the individual musicians arrived and took their seats on the stage, they would begin their tune-ups.
What a racket! No two instruments were together. The music they all performed together was a harsh kind of chaos, each making their own unique sounds (or noises). It was not pleasant, but abrasive.
Then the conductor stepped up on a small platform and tapped his music stand with his baton. Everything fell silent. Then the conductor began to signal with that baton and such a pleasant, calming harmony came from those individual instruments. What made the difference? It was the harmonious leadership and timing of the conductor.
The Holy Spirit is the Great Conductor of the spiritual music produced by the individual members of the Body of Christ. Working together, under the spiritual Conductor’s guidance, we became an example of harmony. Different instruments all harmonizing together to make a beautiful sound. Let’s let the Spirit lead us.
Comment here about the last time you saw some really neat harmony among your brothers and sisters.
Tags: disharmony, Holy Spirit, music, time, unity
People wait all year long for the county fair. Then, when it finally gets here, it rains all week! Kids that want to socialize, play the games and ride the rides either stay home or get soaked. The horse and pony competitions get stuck in the mud. What possible plan could God have for all this rain just as harvest season opens?
Perhaps the rain will drive people into the Industrial Tent where they will pass by the ‘Free Prayer’ booth and God will deal with their hearts. One person walked past and then stopped, looking back at the booth. “Can we pray with you about something?” asked the attendant. “No,” he replied as he walked on, “but I’ll be back.” We can only wonder what was going on in his mind at that point.
Another guy announced himself as an atheist and proceeded to debunk our idea of answered prayer. But he handed his business card to the attendant. I wonder what he thought the prayer booth attendant was going to do with that card?
Continue to pray this week as we see God’s still small voice speak to people where they are.
Tags: evangelism, Holy Spirit, prayer
Dr. A. J. Gordon was a Baptist minister of by-gone days who founded the Boston Missionary Training School in 1889. Dr. Gordon told of passing along Washington St. in Boston and seeing stores with the card in the window, “To rent, with or without power.” Any one could rent the store, and by paying something extra could have power furnished from the engine in the rear.
Dr. Gordon thought it would be a good idea to ask men and women when they joined the church if they wanted to be a member on the “with power” or the “without power” basis, and if the latter, to tell them there were no vacancies for that kind in the church, it already had too many members without power.
Perhaps his thoughts are relevant for today. Do you want to be a Christian with or without power?
Tags: Holy Spirit, power
In response to Anita’s complaints about my “selective deafness”, I went to a hearing doctor to have my hearing checked. The test confirmed that I have significant hearing loss in my left ear. So I ordered a hearing aid. They are allowing me to wear it for three months as a test before I decide if I want to keep it.
Never having worn a hearing aid before, I didn’t know how it would help, or even if it would. So, I wore the thing for six days and really couldn’t tell a difference, at least not enough to make it worth all that money. I even turned it on and off near a sound source and couldn’t tell a difference. I had nearly decided to send it back when I decided to read the instruction book (duh!). The book said there would be an acoustical tone when it was turned on; I had never heard that.
So I put in a new battery, and presto: sound. That battery was dead from the day I got it and I never knew it. Now I can even hear the hair of my head brushing against the microphone. What a difference power makes!
What an object lesson regarding the Holy Spirit. A person who has never heard God’s voice doesn’t know what he/she should be hearing. So, silence seems normal. But when the Holy Spirit’s power comes into a life, suddenly everything becomes clear. What a difference His power makes!
Now I’ll be able to hear everything Anita says to me. Is that good or bad?
Tags: hearing, Holy Spirit, power
Dwight L. Moody, the great Chicago evangelist of the latter 1800s, described people’s efforts to earn their salvation like a child on a rocking horse: “beautiful active motion, but there is no progress”.
In our basement, we have a treadmill that allows Anita and I to get exercise when the weather is inclement. All winter long we can take walks in the warmth of our own home. Our treadmill measures how far we’ve gone, how fast we’re going, and how many miles we’ve traveled. But a treadmill is like the rocking horse: beautiful active motion, but there is no progress.
Have you ever felt like you were on a spiritual treadmill, going around and around but getting no place? There can be no progress on a treadmill. Only when the breath of life from the Holy Spirit comes upon us can we move forward. I recognize my need every day.
How about you? Are you making progress or are you on the treadmill?
Tags: Holy Spirit, treadmill, works
“And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 1:13).
Have you ever heard the expression, “He’s a marked man”? That usually means that someone has done some deed that has earned a reputation in the community. No matter what he or she does, they are marked in people’s eyes. Some of us have been marked for something we did or didn’t do. That perception has given us a reputation. We are marked.
When God judged Cain for the murder of his brother, Abel, he ordered that he would be a wanderer. Cain protested that people would attempt to kill him, so God placed a mark upon him to warn others to leave him alone (Genesis 4:14). In the Book of Revelation God’s faithful have a mark on their foreheads.
The mark God has placed upon each of us is the Holy Spirit Himself. The Holy Spirit should make us known as different in this world. Everyone should be seeing something unique in us. You are marked!
Tags: Holy Spirit, mark
The news media was active in posting video of a Navy missile shooting down a malfunctioning Spy satellite while in orbit. Can you imagine hitting a moving target like that from so far away? That’s like hitting the proverbial needle in a hay stack with a thrown dart from a riding horse! Wow! How did they pull that off with one shot?
I think we’ve seen enough ‘smart bomb’ videos from the Iraq War that we understand the missile “homed in” on the target and kept readjusting its focus as it moved down its trajectory until it finally hit the bull’s eye and destroyed the failed satellite. Staying on target and continuously readjusting its focus was the key to its success and hats off to the US Navy for pulling it off.
But we should also take our hats off to the Holy Spirit, sent on the mission to target our souls no matter how hard we try to hide. On this deliverance mission, the Spirit of life keeps readjusting His efforts every time we take another step in a different direction. He has been called “the Hound of Heaven” for His determination to seek out and and win over every heart. Its wonderful to watch the Spirit’s unpredictable actions as He leads and convicts to bring each of us to be conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. You can’t hide from this spiritual smart bomb because He never loses His focus!
Tags: bull's eye, focus, Holy Spirit, needle in a haystack, Smart bomb, spy satellite, target