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Welcome to OneLife Ministries. This site is designed to lead you prayerfully into a heart experience of Divine Presence, Who is Love. While it focuses on Christian teaching, the writer hopes persons of other faiths find inspiration here. Indeed, "God" can be whatever image helps you trust in the Sacred, by whatever means Grace touches you. Please share this ministry with others, and I hope you return soon. There is a new offering daily.
Blessings,
Rev Dr Brian K Wilcox, MDiv, MFT, PhD
Pastor-Teacher, Author, Workshop Leader, Spiritual Counselor, Chaplain
OPENING PRAYER
Holy Spirit, renew me this day and every day, this night and every night, that I might live so close to You that others will be ministered to through my being near them and apart from my having to say something or do something. Help me not to undervalue the power of my presence to help others when I live close to You. Amen.
*Brian Kenneth Wilcox. Author An Ache for Union.
LISTENING TO THE SCRIPTURE
And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high."
*Luke 24.49 (ESV)
RECEIVING SACRED TEACHING
In a New Year's Day, Tournament of Roses parade, a beautiful float sputtered and quit. The float was out of gas. The parade halted, until someone brought a can of gas.
Ironically, the float was of the Standard Oil Company. With its immense resources, its truck was out of gas.
* * *
In our Scripture for today, Jesus tells his followers that the work they are to do and the life they are to live will require the energies of the Holy Spirit. They are not to rush out into the world to serve Him. They are to wait in Jerusalem for the filling of the Holy Spirit.
We note several aspects of import about the Scripture. They apply to us now, as much as to those early disciples - for we are His disciples, too.
First, Jesus uses the typical linguistic attention-getter, or interjection, of Jewish linguistics: "Behold." Generally, such an interjection expresses strong emotion. We could render what Jesus says, "Hey, you! Pay attention! What I'm about to say is important." This raises the question: "What is so important for Jesus to demand such attention?"
Second, Jesus announces He will send the promise of His, and our, Father on the apostles. This answers the query, "What is so important here?"
What is the promise - not merely a promise? This promise is the Holy Spirit - the Hagios Pneuma. In the Gospel of John, the Holy Spirit is the Paraclete: Counselor, Comforter, Advocate, Helper; lit. One called to be alongside.
But the Helper will teach you everything and will cause you to remember all that I told you. This Helper is the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name.
*John 14.26 (NCV)
In Acts 1.4 Jesus speaks in words similar to our Luke passage for today:
Once when he was eating with them, he told them not to leave Jerusalem. He said, "Wait here to receive the promise from the Father which I told you about."
*Acts 1.4 (NCV)
On the feast of Pentecost, Peter refers to the outpouring of this the promised One whom the apostles waited for, and the passage affirms the Holy Spirit coming from God the Father through Jesus the Son:
Jesus was lifted up to heaven and is now at God's right side. The Father has given the Holy Spirit to Jesus as he promised. So Jesus has poured out that Spirit, and this is what you now see and hear.
*Acts 2.33 (NCV)
Peter refers to a Scripture from the Book of Joel, from the Jewish Scriptures, to affirm the Holy Spirit outpoured on the early Christians is a Divine Outflowing:
God says: "In the last days
I will pour out my Spirit on all kinds of people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams."
*Acts 2.17 (NCV)
The linguistics of receiving the promise of the Sacred Spirit appears in Ephesians, in connection with their receiving Jesus Christ within, in conversion to the Christian faith:
13 So it is with you. When you heard the true teaching—the Good News about your salvation—you believed in Christ. And in Christ, God put his special mark of ownership on you by giving you the Holy Spirit that he had promised.
*Ephesians 1.13 (NCV)
Continued... |
