But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:8 (ESV)
As many of you know Sunday is Pentecost, the day that the church remembers the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on a group of, until then, timid, untrained, “little faith-ed” disciples. What emerged from Pentecost is quite simply a world changing group of people that had not been seen before. Power was manifest.
Often we wonder if that same power is at work today? Perhaps this story will encourage you.
Sarah Irving-Stonebreaker “grew up in Australia, in a loving, secular home, and arrived at Sydney University as a critic of 'religion.' ” She didn’t look for or need faith to ground her identity or her values. She knew from an early age that she wanted to study history at Cambridge and become a historian. She would find her identity in academic achievement, and secular humanism, based on self-evident truths.
But then the power and love as described in Francis Thompson’s Hound of Heaven tracked her down. Here is part of a tremendous testimony of what she found:
As many of you know Sunday is Pentecost, the day that the church remembers the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on a group of, until then, timid, untrained, “little faith-ed” disciples. What emerged from Pentecost is quite simply a world changing group of people that had not been seen before. Power was manifest.
Often we wonder if that same power is at work today? Perhaps this story will encourage you.
Sarah Irving-Stonebreaker “grew up in Australia, in a loving, secular home, and arrived at Sydney University as a critic of 'religion.' ” She didn’t look for or need faith to ground her identity or her values. She knew from an early age that she wanted to study history at Cambridge and become a historian. She would find her identity in academic achievement, and secular humanism, based on self-evident truths.
But then the power and love as described in Francis Thompson’s Hound of Heaven tracked her down. Here is part of a tremendous testimony of what she found:
Christianity, it turned out, looked nothing like the caricature I once held. I found the story of Jacob wrestling with God especially compelling: God wants anything but the unthinking faith I had once assumed characterized Christianity. God wants us to wrestle with Him; to struggle through doubt and faith, sorrow and hope. Moreover, God wants broken people, not self-righteous ones. And salvation is not about us earning our way to some place in the clouds through good works. On the contrary; there is nothing we can do to reconcile ourselves to God.So YES! The Power of Pentecost is still at work today. The beauties of the Gospel are still wooing the most apathetic of hearts.
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