Thought for Today
Job 33:4 The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
Psalm 143:10 Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on a level path.
Romans 5:5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
2 Corinthians 5:17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
The 3 different devotional guides I regularly read all seem this morning to dovetail into thoughts about God’s Spirit as it influences us individually as God’ children and corporately as the Church. The verse from Romans is the focal verse for one of the guides. The verse from 2 Corinthians is the focal verse for another. The third guide is centered around Romans 8, especially on Paul’s use of 2 words, πνεῦμα (pneuma) and σάρξ (sarx), spirit and flesh, respectively.
It is very easy for us to think of life in terms of separate realms of the divine and the secular, the holy and the ordinary. The idea of those separate realms is deeply embedded in the history of human philosophy and theology. It was implicit in some of the early Greek philosophers’ works. It is foundational for all of the gnostic writings and thoughts. It is antithetical to Christianity and denies the Incarnation and the truth of Pentecost.
John wrote, “1:14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.” Jesus was the Creative Word of God made flesh in human form. The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms defines Incarnation as “The doctrine that the eternal second Person of the Trinity became a human being and ‘assumed flesh’ in Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus Christ was the ‘Word made flesh’ (John 1:14). The doctrine holds that Jesus was one divine person with both a divine and a human nature.” (pg. 140)
Last Sunday was Pentecost. Many of us heard and talked about Luke’s words in Acts 2. This morning, I am remembering 2:4, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” While the Holy Spirit and the human disciples might have been (and remained?) spiritually separated realms, Luke understood that those disciples were imbued with the Holy Spirit. Only Jesus, the Christ, was “one divine person with both a divine and a human nature,” but those disciples in Paul’s words, had God’s love “poured into” their hearts.
One of my devotional guides used the analogy of water being poured into a vessel. In some ways, it is a very good analogy. Although that guide did not use the phrase, whenever I think of water, I always recall that “water seeks its own level.” I understand that to mean that water does fill the low spots; water does flow. Anyone who has done any plumbing understands the science involved in a water seal. The trap under every faucet is based on the principle that the water will fill each leg of the ‘u’ to the same level, thereby trapping any gas from the sewer side from entering the home side of the trap, as long as the pressures on each side are equal. A weather barometer operates on the same principle.
The apostle Paul takes this idea of Christians being filled with the Holy Spirit a step further, “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation . . .” Pentecost changed those disciples just as our own accepting of Jesus as the Christ changes each of us. Christian baptism uses water in part to symbolize the washing away of the old, the cleansing of the old, and in part to remind us of God’s love being poured into our hearts.
The Church stands at the locus of change in God’s children as well as the instrument of that change through the teaching and preaching of the gospel. The gospel itself facilitates the agent of change, God’s love being “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” Who or what is the Church? We are the Church. Irrespective of faith tradition, notwithstanding denomination, Christians are united throughout Christendom into the Church. All of God’s children filled with the Holy Spirit, working together to bring about God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven.
Stay safe, listen to the Spirit, trust God,
Pastor Ray