Pentecost, a holy day that Presbyterians, my clan, have work hard to trivialize over the centuries, ought to serve as an antidote to the demoralizing conception that the Christian faith is at its heart a set of ideas and a moral code. Christianity is rather a living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ through the on-going, transforming, and empowering presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. As long as your approach to the Christian faith is build on the acceptance of a set of doctrines and the commitment to live by a certain moral code, you are, to quote the apostle Paul in a slightly different context, “most to be pitied.”
Pentecost insists that our faith is not one of mere ideas, doctrines, and rules but is rather one of reality changing power. The living power that raised Jesus from the dead (Ephesians 1:19-20) is pour out upon the people of Christ through the Holy Spirit. By means of that power we, the people of Christ, are equipped to go out into the world and change the state of reality. Ask for that empowering. Pursue it. Live it.
Read: Acts 1:4-8 and 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, 27-31
Then listen to: Power to Change the World
©2015 Gary A. Chorpenning
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