Daily Devotional For Thursday, May 30, 2024

It is so hard to think that we are almost to the weekend. For today, I thought we would look at Isaiah 44:3b-4, “And I will pour out my Spirit on your descendants, and my blessing on your children. (4) They will thrive like watered grass, like willows on a riverbank” ESV). I am always amazed when I read those Scripture passages where God’s Holy Spirit works in such powerful and moving ways that brings about such transformation in people’s lives that you know it has to be God. We see this in the book of Acts in Acts 2. On the day we call the Day of Pentecost, Peter stood up to preach and miraculously, there was such a moving of the Holy Spirit that God brought about a transformation in the lives of 3,000 people. 

What was so powerful is that when Peter stood up to preach, all these different groups of people heard Peter preach in their own native language. Look at it below in Acts 2:7-12:

“They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, (8) and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages! (9) Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, (10) Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome (11) (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs. And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!” (12) They stood there amazed and perplexed. “What can this mean?” they asked each other.” (NLT).

No wonder all these different people and language groups responded to the Gospel. In the Isaiah passage what we read is that when the Spirit of God works, people are described as alive, vibrant, and growing. What kind of transformation would the Spirit of God bring to your life and mine if we began to seek a greater degree of alignment and cooperation with Him? He would bring life, vibrancy, and fruitfulness like we have never known. 

It would bring a change we could never accomplish on our own because His power is infinite, while ours is limited. Whatever we can accomplish at the very peak of our abilities is just a shadow of what He can do. It takes humility to admit we are weak in our humanity and desperately need His help. But the Spirit of God is gracious, generous, and more than able to help us when we express a desire to cooperate with Him in a greater way.

To begin with, below are some Bible verses that give you the promise of what God’s Spirit will do in us:

• 1 Corinthians 6:19, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” (ESV).
• John 14:26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (ESV).
• Romans 8:11,”I f the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (ESV).
• Romans 8:26, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (ESV).
• Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (ESV).
• Luke 11:13, Jesus said, “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!” (ESV).

Romans 11:34 says, “For who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give Him advice?” (NLT). 1 Corinthians 2:11 says, “No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit” (NLT). The reason I put these verses in here is the that understanding God is impossible. That is the point. Look what the Lord says in Isaiah 55:8-9:

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. (9) For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts” (NLT).

When I read what God’s Holy Spirit did on the Day of Pentecost, it is the opposite of what God’s Holy Spirit did at the Tower of Babel. Look at Genesis 11:1-9:

“Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. (2) As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. (3) They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. (4) Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” (5) But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. (6) The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. (7) Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” (8) So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. (9) That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth” (NLT).

Do you see the difference? At the tower of Babel, God confused their language so they could not understand each other. On the Day of Pentecost, God caused everyone to hear the Gospel preached in their own language. Some have called this event at Pentecost “Babel Reversed.” As I wrap up here, I would to provide a story provided by pastor and author John Piper, who gives a great illustration of how the Holy Spirit works:

“Picture a huge dam for hydroelectric power under construction, like the Aswan High Dam on the Nile, 375 feet high and 11,000 feet across. Egypt's President Nasser announced the plan for construction in 1953. The dam was completed in 1970 and in 1971 there was a grand dedication ceremony and the 12 turbines with their ten billion kilowatt-hour capacity were unleashed with enough power to light every city in Egypt. During the long period of construction the Nile River wasn't completely stopped. Even as the reservoir was filling, part of the river was allowed to flow past. The country folk downstream depended on it. 

They drank it, they washed in it, it watered their crops and turned their mill-wheels. They sailed on it in the moonlight and wrote songs about it. It was their life. But on the day when the reservoir poured through the turbines a power was unleashed that spread far beyond the few folk down river and brought possibilities they had only dreamed of.

Well, Pentecost is like the dedicatory opening of the Aswan High Dam. Before Pentecost the river of God's Spirit blessed the people of Israel and was their very life. But after Pentecost the power of the Spirit spread out to light the whole world. None of the benefits enjoyed in the pre-Pentecostal days were taken away. But ten billion kilowatts were added to enable the church to take the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ to every tongue and tribe and nation” (Source: John Piper, "Was the Holy Spirit not on Earth before Pentecost," Gospel Coalition Blogs (5-24-15).

Questions To Consider

1. Who is the Holy Spirit to you and why?
2. When have you experienced the moving power of the Holy Spirit in your own life? What happened and how did you respond to it?
3. In history there have been times people who called themselves Christians have given a bad name and reputation to the Holy Spirit. They have credited the Holy Spirit to outlandish things such as if you don’t speak in tongues, you’re not a Christian; tests of faith such as picking up diamond back rattlesnakes and etc. Maybe you have heard of such stories, but that is not the Holy Spirit.  God is wanting to work through you as well. Are you willing to let Him?

Scripture To Meditate On: Ephesians 5:18, “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit” (NLT).

Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus I want to be filled with the indwelling presence of Your Holy Spirit. I want when people are around me, they feel Your Holy Spirit in me. Use me and speak through me to win people to Christ as You used Peter to do on the day of Pentecost. I ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen!”

I love you Southside!—Pastor Kelly