Just 50 days after Easter, the Holy Spirit empowered the Early Church. Here are timely thoughts about the Third Person of the Trinity and our response to him.
Gracious Spirit Come, Holy Dove,
Descend on silent pinion,
Brood o'er my sinful soul
with patient love,
Till all my being owns Thy mild
dominion.
Spirit of grace,
Reveal in me my Saviour,
That I may gaze upon His mirrored Face,
Till I reflect it in my whole behaviour.
—Richard Wilton, quoted in
You Can Say That Again
No Waiting
There is no need for us to wait, as the one hundred and twenty had to wait, for the Spirit to come. For the Holy Spirit did come on the day of Pentecost, and has never left his church. Our responsibility is to humble ourselves before his sovereign authority to determine not to quench him, but to allow him his freedom. For then our churches will again manifest those marks of the Spirit's presence, which many young people are specially looking for, namely biblical teaching, loving fellowship, living worship, and an ongoing, outgoing evangelism.
—John Stott in
Authentic Christianity
We Know the Power
When we know we have most of Christ, when we love Him most, live for Him most, we know that the Holy Spirit is within us in power.
—F. B. Meyer in
A Castaway and Other Addresses
He Is a Person
Spell this out in capital letters: THE HOLY SPIRIT IS A PERSON. He is not enthusiasm. He is not courage. He is not energy. He is not the personification of all good qualities, like Jack Frost is the personification of cold weather. Actually, the Holy Spirit is not the personification of anything. He is a Person, the same as you are a person, but not material substance. He has individuality. He is one being and not another. He has will and intelligence. He has hearing. He has knowledge and sympathy and ability to love and see and think. He can hear, speak, desire, grieve and rejoice. He is a Person.
—A. W. Tozer in
The Counselor
Using the Power
Waste of power is a tragedy. God does not waste the great power of his Spirit on those who want it simply for their own sake, to be more holy, or good, or gifted. His great task is to carry on the work for which Jesus sacrificed his throne and his life—the redemption of fallen humanity.
—Alan Redpath in
The Life of Victory
It Keeps on Building
When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, it wasn't dynamite, it was a dynamo! Dynamite makes a loud noise, kicks up a lot of dust, and it's over. A dynamo is a continual source of power. It builds and builds and builds, and the power never stops flowing.
—Ken Hutcherson in
The Church: What We Are Meant to Be
Our Teacher
The Spirit will teach us to love the Word, to meditate on it and to keep it. He will reveal the love of Christ to us, that we may love him fervently and with a pure heart. Then we shall begin to see that a life in the love of Christ in the midst of our daily life and distractions is a glorious possibility and a blessed reality.
Believing God
Every time we say, "I believe in the Holy Spirit," we mean that we believe that there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it.
—J. B. Phillips in
Plain Christianity
Soul Light
Immediately the Holy Spirit comes in as life and as light, He will chase through every avenue of our minds; His light will penetrate every recess of our hearts; He will chase His light through every affection of our souls, and make us know what sin is. The Holy Spirit convicts of sin, man does not.
—Oswald Chambers in
Biblical Psychology
All in All
Do not pray for more of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Trinity and is not in pieces. Every child of God has all of Him, but does He have all of us?
—Julia Kellersberger in
Presbyterian Journal (May 11, 1983)
Natural Witness
If a person is filled with the Holy Spirit, his witness will not be optional or mandatory—it will be inevitable.
—Richard Halverson in
Pentecostal Evangel (Aug. 12, 1979)
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