It always amazes me that people pray for the Holy Spirit to come and fill them or fill their Churches with fire. I wonder if they really realize that the Holy Spirit does not do controlled burns.
-- Dennis Sheppard
#2545
Friday, May 28, 2010
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I am always amazed when writers, preachers and teachers say they are amazed "that people pray to the Holy Spirit to come and fill them or fill their Churches with fire." Of course everyone has been taught that God has sent redeeming and salvific grace through Jesus Christ to all who believe. Nevertheless, just as one needs to eat food for the body every day, I believe firmly that each of us needs to feed our soul with the Spirit every day, as well. It isn't so much what God does because God's Self-Communication is active and always everywhere. It is a reminder to us, however, to be in a free and active faith relationship with the Spirit every day. Along with the personal or individual response to that grace-Presence, there is a collective response which is our family, our church, our neighborhood, our country, our world. It means that the Spirit must be allowed to flow into and through each of us who believes to all others, for that's what Jesus did. It's really mankind who does controlled burns. But openness to the Spirit teaches us we can no more hold back the Spirit of new life and oneness than we can hold back the rays of the sun or the raindrops in a storm. As we are loved and healed, so we ought to love and heal. God's blessings on you and your family.
ReplyDeleteChaplain Mike Murphy, Wisconsin