Flickr Photo by: Cuba Gallery
With the coming of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, followers of Jesus found a new awareness of God’s presence—not only with them, but in them. Suddenly, and then slowly, they discovered that individually and together they had personally become the New Temple of the living God.
Before Pentecost, and for awhile afterward, these Jewish believers in Christ were still worshiping in the great Temple of Jerusalem. They shared a history in which the Spirit of the Lord had come on individuals to enable them to speak with great wisdom or to act with heroic strength on behalf of their nation. It was this same Spirit they had seen in Jesus.
And now a new day had dawned. In the months and years to come, messengers like Paul would help them to live out, and even to “normalize” an inexhaustible mystery of what it would mean to walk, live, pray, love— sharing life together in the Spirit (Romans 8:9).
Admittedly, the language of the New Testament doesn’t always distinguish between references to our spirit (in the sense of the thoughts and desires that no one knows except the one to whom they belong)—and the Spirit of Christ who is in us.
But even as questions linger, our Lord has offered us a place to begin when he assured us that our Father in heaven will not withhold his Holy Spirit from those who ask (compare Matt 7:11 with Luke 11:11-13).
Am thinking— what a wonderful confidence, hope, and way to begin again, and again…
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