Acts 2:1-4 (The Message)

When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force—no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them.

John 7:37-39 (The Message)

On the final and climactic day of the Feast, Jesus took his stand. He cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in me this way, just as the Scripture says.” (He said this in regard to the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were about to receive. The Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.)

Ephesians 5:18 (The Message)

Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him.

Here we have Jesus speaking publicly in the temple on the most crowded day of the most popular feast of Israel. Jesus has taken a very direct and public stand. He calls the assembled body of Israel to come and follow him.

There is no wishy-washiness here. He issues the call:

Are you thirsty? Come and Drink!

Do you desire satisfaction? Come and Drink!

Are you burdened by the bad things you’ve done? Come and Drink!

Are you weighed down by the struggles of life? Come and Drink!

Jesus calls and leaves us to consider our response. 

Sunday 27th May is Pentecost Sunday when (some of) the church around the world celebrate the breathtakingly amazing day when God poured out, giving as a gift to all believers, the Holy Spirit of God. Each day for the next ten days, up to and including May 27th, I shall post a quote about the Holy Spirit and would encourage you to use it as a prayerful meditation, inviting Holy Spirit to come and flow in and through you.

“Destitute of the Fire of God, nothing else counts; possessing Fire, nothing else matters.”

Samuel Chadwick

Sunday 27th May is Pentecost Sunday when (some of) the church around the world celebrate the breathtakingly amazing day when God poured out, giving as a gift to all believers, the Holy Spirit of God. Each day for the next ten days, up to and including May 27th, I shall post a quote about the Holy Spirit and would encourage you to use it as a prayerful meditation, inviting Holy Spirit to come and flow in and through you.

“Spell this out in capital letters: THE Holy Spirit IS A PERSON. He is not enthusiasm. He is not courage. He is not energy. He is not the personification of all good qualities, like Jack Frost is the personification of cold weather. Actually, the Holy Spirit is not the personification of anything…… He has individuality. He is one being and not another. He has will and intelligence. He has hearing. He has knowledge and sympathy and ability to love and see and think. He can hear, speak, desire, grieve and rejoice. He is a Person.”

A. W. Tozer

 

The word Comforter as applied to the Holy Spirit needs to be translated by some vigorous term. Literally, it means with strength. Jesus promised His followers that The Strengthener would be with them forever. This promise is no lullaby for the faint-hearted. It is a blood transfusion for courageous living.

E. Paul Hovey

I like cartoons and I like thinking. Not a combination that is usually highly regarded in many churches. Still I keep stumbling over Christians who seem to enjoy similar proclivities, one such is ASBO Jesus. I do not agree with all that he says in his cartoons but I like the thoughts they produce in me. Here are a few recent strips.

Sunday 27th May is Pentecost Sunday when (some of) the church around the world celebrate the breathtakingly amazing day when God poured out, giving as a gift to all believers, the Holy Spirit of God. Each day for the next ten days, up to and including May 27th, I shall post a quote about the Holy Spirit and would encourage you to use it as a prayerful meditation, inviting Holy Spirit to come and flow in and through you.

Unity is necessary to the outpouring of the Spirit of God. If you have 120 volts of electricity coming into your house but you have broken wiring, you may turn on the switch, but nothing works – no lights come on, the stove doesn’t warm, the radio doesn’t turn on. Why? Because you have broken wiring. The power is ready to do its work…, but where there is broken wiring, there is no power. Unity is necessary among the children of God if we are going to know the flow of power…to see God do His wonders.

A. W. Tozer

 

There is no need for us to wait, as the one hundred and twenty had to wait [Acts 1], for the Spirit to come. For the Holy Spirit did come on the day of Pentecost, and has never left his church. Our responsibility is to humble ourselves before his sovereign authority, to determine not to quench him, but to allow him his freedom. For then our churches will again manifest those marks of the Spirit’s presence which many young people are especially looking for, namely biblical teaching, loving fellowship, living worship, and an ongoing, outgoing evangelism.

John R. W. Stott

Sunday 27th May is Pentecost Sunday when (some of) the church around the world celebrate the breathtakingly amazing day when God poured out, giving as a gift to all believers, the Holy Spirit of God. Each day for the next ten days, up to and including May 27th, I shall post a quote about the Holy Spirit and would encourage you to use it as a prayerful meditation, inviting Holy Spirit to come and flow in and through you.

“Some souls think that the Holy Spirit is very far away, far, far, up above. Actually he is, we might say, the divine Person who is most closely present to the creature. He accompanies him everywhere. He penetrates him with himself. He calls him, he protects him. He makes of him his living temple. He defends him. He helps him. He guards him from all his enemies. He is closer to him than his own soul. All the good a soul accomplishes, it carries out under his inspiration, in his light, by his grace and his help.”

Concepcion Cabrera de Armida

 

He is intangible and invisible. But His work is more powerful than the most ferocious wind. The Spirit brings order out of chaos and beauty out of ugliness. He can transform a sin-blistered man into a paragon of virtue. The Spirit changes people. The Author of life is also the Transformer of life.

R. C. Sproul

Sunday 27th May is Pentecost Sunday when (some of) the church around the world celebrate the breathtakingly amazing day when God poured out, giving as a gift to all believers, the Holy Spirit of God. Each day for the next ten days, up to and including May 27th, I shall post a quote about the Holy Spirit and would encourage you to use it as a prayerful meditation, inviting Holy Spirit to come and flow in and through you.

The Holy Spirit cannot conquer the world with unbelief, nor can He save the world with a worldly Church. He calls for a crusade, a campaign, and an adventure of saving passion. For this enterprise He wants a separated, sanctified and sacrificial people.

Samuel Chadwick

Sunday 27th May is Pentecost Sunday when (some of) the church around the world celebrate the breathtakingly amazing day when God poured out, giving as a gift to all believers, the Holy Spirit of God. Each day for the next ten days, up to and including May 27th, I shall post a quote about the Holy Spirit and would encourage you to use it as a prayerful meditation, inviting Holy Spirit to come and flow in and through you.

As the sun can be seen only by its own light, so Christ can be known only by His own Spirit.

Robert Leighton

A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God. A word spoken by you when your conscience is clear, and your heart full of God’s Spirit, is worth ten thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin.

Robert Murray McCheyne