Being God’s Children

•May 15, 2013 • 3 Comments

Pentecost.  The Coming of the Spirit.  What difference does the Spirit make in our lives?

Through the Spirit, we become God’s own children.  Not good friends, not colleagues or associates, not people to run around after him, but his own children.

Romans 8:14-17 (NIVUK)

14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.[a] And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

  1. Romans 8:15 The Greek word for adoption to sonship is a term referring to the full legal standing of an adopted male heir in Roman culture; also in verse 23.

I love this version of this passage from The Message

God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

15-17 This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

Life with God’s Spirit is adventurously expectant!  Some days I feel like life is adventurous enough, but it is true.  Life lived with God is never boring.  There is always something to do.  With an ear to the voice of the Holy Spirit, he is always calling us, nudging us on.  How can we do what he is asking of us?  Because we know.  One of the aspects of the Spirit’s life is confirming.  Confirming who we are – God’s precious children.  Known and loved by him, given all he promises to us.

Being an heir is a privilege – but it is also a responsibility.  And so as well as enjoying being the child of the loving God, we should also be asking

What’s next?

Holy Spirit,
fill this place,
fill this life.

May I know that I am a treasured child of God,
wanted and welcome.

As I know I am your child
may I learn to know your voice
ever more clearly,
to ask
‘What next’
to hear your reply
and to walk in confidence with you

Posted in bible, faith, God, Holy Spirit, Lectionary, Religion, theology
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God’s Renewing Spirit

•May 14, 2013 • 2 Comments

Psalm 104:24-35

24 How many are your works, Lord!
    In wisdom you made them all;
    the earth is full of your creatures.
25 There is the sea, vast and spacious,
    teeming with creatures beyond number –
    living things both large and small.
26 There the ships go to and fro,
    and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.

27 All creatures look to you
    to give them their food at the proper time.
28 When you give it to them,
    they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
    they are satisfied with good things.
29 When you hide your face,
    they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
    they die and return to the dust.
30 When you send your Spirit,
    they are created,
    and you renew the face of the ground.

31 May the glory of the Lord endure for ever;
    may the Lord rejoice in his works –
32 he who looks at the earth, and it trembles,
    who touches the mountains, and they smoke.

33 I will sing to the Lord all my life;
    I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
34 May my meditation be pleasing to him,
    as I rejoice in the Lord.
35 But may sinners vanish from the earth
    and the wicked be no more.

Praise the Lord, my soul.

Praise the Lord.

Posted in bible, faith, God, Lectionary, Religion, response, theology
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God With Us – Forever

•May 13, 2013 • Leave a Comment

This coming Sunday is Pentecost Sunday – often celebrating as the birthday of the church.  When a group of terrified and inadequate people were filled and equipped by God for the task he had for them.

To this day, God continues to fill and equip terrified and inadequate people for his work.

Acts 2:1-21

The Coming of the Holy Spirit

2 On the day of Pentecost all the Lord’s followers were together in one place. 2 Suddenly there was a noise from heaven like the sound of a mighty wind! It filled the house where they were meeting. 3 Then they saw what looked like fiery tongues moving in all directions, and a tongue came and settled on each person there. 4 The Holy Spirit took control of everyone, and they began speaking whatever languages the Spirit let them speak.

5 Many religious Jews from every country in the world were living in Jerusalem. 6 And when they heard this noise, a crowd gathered. But they were surprised, because they were hearing everything in their own languages. 7 They were excited and amazed, and said:

Don’t all these who are speaking come from Galilee? 8 Then why do we hear them speaking our very own languages? 9 Some of us are from Parthia, Media, and Elam. Others are from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, 10 Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, parts of Libya near Cyrene, Rome, 11 Crete, and Arabia. Some of us were born Jews, and others of us have chosen to be Jews. Yet we all hear them using our own languages to tell the wonderful things God has done.

12 Everyone was excited and confused. Some of them even kept asking each other, “What does all this mean?”

13 Others made fun of the Lord’s followers and said, “They are drunk.”

Peter Speaks to the Crowd

14 Peter stood with the eleven apostles and spoke in a loud and clear voice to the crowd:

Friends and everyone else living in Jerusalem, listen carefully to what I have to say! 15 You are wrong to think that these people are drunk. After all, it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16 But this is what God had the prophet Joel say,

17 “When the last days come,
I will give my Spirit
    to everyone.
Your sons and daughters
    will prophesy.
Your young men
    will see visions,
and your old men
    will have dreams.
18 In those days I will give
    my Spirit to my servants,
both men and women,
    and they will prophesy.

19 I will work miracles
    in the sky above
and wonders
    on the earth below.
There will be blood and fire
    and clouds of smoke.
20 The sun will turn dark,
and the moon
    will be as red as blood
before the great
    and wonderful day
    of the Lord appears.
21 Then the Lord
    will save everyone
    who asks for his help.”

The disciples must have been feeling bereft.  They had been through such a roller-coaster of events.  Jesus life and all it had come to mean to them; his death and the bewilderment and confusion that must have ensued; his resurrection with the wondering that brought about; then his ascension, which must have left them feeling all alone again.  But now God is here in a new way.  A way that he can live inside them day in and day out.  God’s presence with them no longer depends on a physical presence – he is with them for all time, equipping them and working in and through them.

John Wesley memorial Aldersgate

This Sunday is also marked as Aldersgate Sunday, the day John Wesley pointed to as his conversion.

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

From the Journal of John Wesley

The coming of the Spirit is not just something that happened as a one-off in the lives of the disciples, or John Wesley, but an event that can take place in the hearts of each one of us – to KNOW God, to know he has taken all the things we’ve got wrong, and comes to equip us day by day for all he calls us to.  We all need God with us everyday, whispering, shouting, prodding, comforting, warming, strengthening.  We are his disciples, called to bring his message to the places we are, in a way they understand – for that we need God’s power, God’s indwelling – the Holy Spirit.  And he is ready to pour it on us.

Holy Spirit,
I pray that you will come today
and everyday
anew into my life.

Fill me,
equip me,
refresh me,
empower me,
strengthen me,
nudge me,
comfort me,
warm me

I pray

Posted in bible, church, faith, forgiveness, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Lectionary, Religion, theology
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