2621AFC052226 – The Hour for Fire Power
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Acts 2:3-4 (GNT) [1] – 3 Then they saw what looked like tongues of fire which spread out and touched each person there. 4 They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to talk in other languages, as the Spirit enabled them to speak.
Psalms 104 b :29-30 (GNT) –
when you take away your breath, they die
and go back to the dust from which they came.
30 But when you give them breath, they are created;
you give new life to the earth.
1 Corinthians 12:3 b (GNT) – No one can confess “Jesus is Lord,” without being guided by the Holy Spirit.
John 20:21-23 (GNT) – 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I send you.” 22 Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive people’s sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places! Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise – the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. IYKYK – Jesus The Christ of God is Lord of lords and King of kings. God himself has told us in Isaiah 45:5 (GNT) –
5 “I am the Lord,; there is no other god.
I will give you the strength you need,
although you do not know me.
And in Ezekiel 36:27 (GNT) he also says – 27 I will put my Spirit in you and will see to it that you follow my laws and keep all the commands I have given you.
Now there’s a WOW! moment!! God himself will put his Spirit into us, and he will ensure that we follow his Law and keep the Commandments – ALL of them in the Old Testament and the New Testament through The Power of the Holy Spirit, so each of us can ask Our Father in Heaven that the Spirit of God will descend into my heart (↔ Music Link). We lift our hearts and voices to sing 🕊Come Holy Ghost, Creator Blest (↔ Music Link) Belovéd, You will notice that there are (too) many music links in this post (12!). I won’t ask you to listen to all of them, at least not today. To be honest, they are only a few of the songs that come to mind when we associate ourselves in the Holy Spirit. However, shortly we’ll be asked to start up that little movie theater that projects images onto the inside of our foreheads, but first, a quick note about today’s content:
“Mr. Chick (that’s what I’m called at work), how come you put so much moosic and pickchah in dis one?” The best answer I have is that it’s part of the agreement. I don’t make up these posts; I just transcribe them. “Hoo Br’ah! You some kine Holy roller guy, get copper wire to heaven?” Nope. I just work for the Guy named El Shaddai-Olam, and his Agent, the Holy Spirit. Honestly, I can’t do any of this without them – him God the Almighty Triune Creator and Ruler of the universe (small u because the universe is a what, not a who).
Enough of that. let’s get to the movies. I ask you to imagine with me that scene in the Upper Room, the Cenacle – a room about 30 feet by 40 feet. It was the second story of a building about that large probably fairly close to the temple in Jerusalem. It’s large enough to hold more than 120 people who formed the local base of Jesus’ ministry. How do we know that? It’s in the Bible. Acts 1:15 – 15 A few days later there was a meeting of the believers, about a hundred and twenty in all, and Peter stood up to speak. This was before the events of Pentecost when the mighty wind and Holy Fire came. This painting is one artist’s rendition of what might have happened. You can find another image located at Aloha Friday Message – May 21, 2021 – Together Again. Now, how did this happen? Are either of these images good examples of how it probably happened or, possibly happened? I want to show you something which occurred to me while I was listening to what needed to be done for this post. Some of you are familiar with what’s called a GIF file. In the past I’ve used images of fire. Here’s an example of that.
One thing I like about this image is that there doesn’t seem to be any fuel for that flame. The flame originates from itself. I think in a way that’s an easy way to understand how God works. There isn’t any fuel for God. God does not spring from any substance. He created the universe from nothing before there was ever even time and space – period; now that’s really difficult to comprehend! But, if we close our eyes for a bit, we can “see” it on the little movie screen we’ve started up. It was this sort of Divine guidance the Lord used when leading Israel out of Egypt and into the desert. If you recall those passages, there was a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. You could find an example of that in this post: Aloha Friday Message – February 23, 2024 – What do we see?
If we study several artist’s conceptions of how Pentecost happened, usually we see a dove, as well as some light or rays of light coming off of the Dove, and you might see little images of small flames hovering over the people’s heads. Inside my forehead on my movie screen, I see something a little bit different and to me surprisingly very reassuring. You may remember we talked about God’s Sh’khinah Glory. Most recently we talked about it appearing between the Cherubim on the Mercy Seat.
I see that coruscating – sparkling, scintillating, dazzling, brilliant, self-originating, exceedingly Holy Light – came whooshing and roaring out of the Heavens riding the same Mighty Wind that moved over the Waters and was guided by Wisdom. The wind blew open all the windows in the Cenacle, and the Apostles and others – perhaps even the same 120 believers – heard the wind. Then, after the windows opened, the Sh’khinah Glory of God ZOOMED into the room and hovered there In the shape of a ball just below the ceiling. The Light was intense, as intense as the Wind, and then the light started moving! The brightness of it filled the entire room. It spun and glittered and cast shimmering little sparks, some little pieces of itself. Tiny little bits of Sh’khinah glory broke off and settled on the people assembled in that room.
Yet the light was never diminished, the shape never changed, those sparks never stopped coming as bits and bits of Sh’khinah Glory spread out across the room, settled on everyone gathered there, and then moved down into their hearts and minds. They began to Prophesy, to sing God’s praises, to give God the Glory about that which was inhabiting them. God had sent out His Spirit – His very Spirit – and placed it in the hearts and minds of his newly chosen people – THE WORLD (John 3:16-21 scrolls up the screen in the background of the movie). The Prophecy about this can be found in Joel 2:28-29 (Stop here and listen to this as an imaginary woman with a firm voice reads it.) The Apostle Peter cites this Prophecy in Acts 2:16-21 (Stop here and read this as well. After all this is Bible Study.)
How did this come about.? How did that idea originate? Well, the same way the answer originated in you when you in your mind saw and heard what happened. A little spark of that Glory from those Apostles and Disciples gathered in the Cenacle also fell on you, and me, and us. By now we should know that what the Lord speaks is truth, and his truth is everlasting. When God, the Trinity, speaks and says, “I will send out my Spirit on everyone,” it boils down to BELIEVE IT OR ELSE.
“Eh! How come ‘or else,’ Br’ah?” It’s simple. Remember? “ … so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” The “or else” is for all who are unbelievers. I imagine – for this little movie – that they will experience a fire as brilliant and self-sustaining as the Sh’khinah Glory; but, it also has the opposite effect – it is eternal death. We get a Prophecy about that in Isaiah 5:24 (GNT) – 24 So now, just as straw and dry grass shrivel and burn in the fire, your roots will rot and your blossoms will dry up and blow away, because you have rejected what the Lord Almighty, Israel’s Holy God, has taught us. What the Lord Almighty taught us was that Jesus Christ came to bring all earthlings Eternal Life, but – as we all know by now – to receive that Gift, we must first accept it (hence the oft-repeated evangelical question, “Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior?).
That takes us back to how the Apostles and Disciples learned to follow – to believe in and trust – Jesus in the first place. “Unless the Father beckons …” (↔ Music Link) Will we receive that Bread of Life? Will we accept that Chalice of Salvation? How can we do so unless the Father’s Holy Spirit anoints us to accept Christ’s Presence – Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity? So, if we truly want him to raise us up, (↔ Music Link) Therefore, dear Adelphos, we, too, can lift our hearts, and minds, and voices to Praise him! (↔ Music Link) (Remember: God inhabits the Praise of his People)
We join the Psalmist in the worshipful petition, Send forth Your Spirit (↔ Music Link) We need that Fire deep inside (↔ Music Link) because when that “Holy Ghost Fire” falls on us, we prayerfully imagine (through contemporaneous concomitance) we can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in that Cenacle and the absolutely Holy JOY that being there brings us. It’s a Gift. Unwrap it, Adelphos! It’s got your name on it (he has called you by name – See Isaiah 43:1) I often (always as near as I can tell) sing this hymn before I start working on every post: Spirit of the Living God (↔ Music Link) Something happens then, and I have good reason to murmur, “Abba! Father!” (↔ Music Link).
Adelphos, WHY SHOULD WE WAIT? NOW IS THE TIME (↔ Music Link) 🕊Come Holy Ghost Creator Blest (↔ Music Link) (YEP! ONE MORE TIME FRIENDS!!) NOW is The Hour for Fire Power!
Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
[1] Passages marked (GNT): Good News Translation (GNT) are from the Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition)© 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.
