Monday Spirit

It's Monday. All day long, it's Monday.

I've made a to-do list, and my to-do list isn't as long as I would like. I understand that many folks would love to be living the life I'm currently living with a lessening amount of stress and such, but I miss being busy.

I do, however, enjoy being, well, able to think more about my place in the God universe, think more about sermons, think more about services, think more about my congregations.

What I have discovered is this: I'm thinking too much. The sermons have been well-thought out but more boring. The services have been nothing special. My congregations have not changed.

The bottom line is the Holy Spirit moves where and when he wasn't to.

Look at his story: Peter and John are spending time in Jerusalem. They've gone up to the temple to pray at the ninth hour, about 3 in the afternoon. As they are walking into one of the gates, the one called beautiful, there is a begger at the gate asking alms from those who were entering the temple. He had been lame from the time he was born.

As Peter walks by him, he sees him and turns, saying "Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." He took the beggar by the right hand and lifted him, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.

That instant, a life was changed. Because the Holy Spirit moved, not at Peter's beconing, but because the Holy Spirit CHOSE to move.

All my reading, all my praying, all my meditation, all my hoping, all my trying means something, but in the long run it means nothing if the Holy Spirit is not involved.

Look at what the Holy Spirit is first translated to be, or what He is called by Jesus

Jesus says of him: I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Helper (he is a helper), that He may abide with you forever (he's with you, inside you, helping), the Spirit of truth.

In other translations, the word helper is given as Counselor, Comfortor. He is to come to us and help, counsel and comfort. Forever.

The Holy Spirit dwells with you. He changes everything. No longer is there a need for prophets, no longer a need for prophecy. He tells us what we need to know, when we need to know it and even teaches us about what Jesus has done.

All that is important for this reason: I believe no church work, no work in general, is accomplished without the Holy Spirit directing us, guiding us into the proper action.

In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit is the origing of supernatural abilities, the giver of artistic skill, the source of power and strength, the inspiration of prophecy and the mediation of God's message. In the New Testament, he declares the truth about Christ, endows with power the proclamation of the Bible, purs out God's love in the heart, makes intercession, imparts gifts for ministry, enables the fruit of holy living and strengthens the inner being.

The Holy Spirit is God's flu shot, going into us to prevent all sorts of infections.

With the Holy Spirit inside him, Peter went from a coward to an evangelist, a fisherman to a fisher of men. Nothing else could explain his tranformation. And if he could be transformed in this manner, so can we.

The Holy Spirit has no silver or gold, but what he has, the Spirit of God himself, he freely gives.

Get up and walk this Monday.