Pentecost Sunday 27.5.12
We need more of the Holy Spirit, both for our own improvement and for the good of the world.
There are restaurants where you can eat all you want for a fixed price. We find there is a limit to how much food we can take in at a time. So also spiritually, there are limits. For us to receive God is like a cup trying to hold the whole ocean. The finite cannot hold all of infinity.
That is a limitation from our created nature. But there is another limitation – self-imposed: we limit God for our own reasons. We do not want to be filled as much as we should want it; we do not seek Him as passionately as we should.
Why? We lack faith; we are damaged by previous sins; we become accustomed to the dark and no longer seek the light. Even we who do seek Him impose our own limits; limits as to how far we are prepared to yield to Him, to desire or expect anything different.
The first thing is to ask anyway. Ask that He will come; ask that He will make us want Him to come.
Our attitude could be improved by prayer, but we do not pray because our attitude is wrong!
The person who is in darkness is not likely to pray much and even then only in a superficial way.
Many do not desire God nor even expect that they could or should desire Him.
They suffer from lack of hope, even despair.
This can have the effect of dragging us back to earth when we could be soaring aloft. The Holy Spirit comes and inspires us to look much higher, if only we would ask.
Dare to hope. There is something much better than this. This is what the apostles were praying for.
Our faith requires us to take risks at times, to act in ways where we do not see the result, but trust that it will be good. We just have to take the first step and then we will see that God has honoured His promise and sustains us. From there further progress is possible.
Put your nets over the side. In the name of Jesus get up and walk.
We are praying for a release of all the unused potential; all the things that have not happened but should have, and might still happen if only we ask for long enough, fervently enough.
Not enough people have asked for God to come. That is the source of all the trouble. The way out of the trouble is to seek His presence and power.
Gradually the light starts to dawn, for individuals and the Church.
The original Pentecost was spectacular but our Pentecost experience does not have to be so fast or so loud, only as real. The reality of transformation by the Holy Spirit... We may not give a big speech or do public healings but we can be changed within and be a better person than ever before. And there can be healing in our families and communities. His effects are many, and all of them good.
It is all there just waiting to happen.
So there are two opposing views: Despair - which sees that all goes on just the same
or Hope - that the Holy Spirit can change all this if we simply ask; but we do have to ask with some intensity and consistency.
We never give up, never ease off. We become stronger ourselves the more boldly we claim the whole world as God’s domain.
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