Monday, December 4, 2017

God's Holy Fire: 'United in the Spirit'

Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. - Ephesians 4:3 NLT

When we open the book of Acts, we hear Jesus promise twice in the first few verses to send the Holy Spirit to empower the early disciples as they go to all nations to share the good news of Jesus. As we read further, we see the Holy Spirit at work to break down every barrier — geographical, cultural, racial, economic, political, and social — to make the people who come to Jesus into one new people. Paul reflects on the great grace of God in Ephesians chapters 1-3.

In today's verse, he challenges Jesus' followers to make every effort to keep what the Holy Spirit and the grace of God had worked to create: a people united by the Holy Spirit and held together with the bond of peace. He wanted them to "wage peace"! He wanted them to be peacemakers and not just "peacewanters."

Making peace only can happen when we allow the Spirit to control our hearts while we earnestly and diligently strive to be united through the Spirit as God's children.

Father God…You are Responsive!

Jeremiah 33:2-3

2 “This is what the LORD says, he who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it—the LORD is his name:

3 ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’

Evangelist

The evangelist is a man with a driving urgency, not a man with two minds.

The Gospel and nothing else on earth matters, neither fame, money, popularity nor life itself.

Quotes 

. As base a thing as money often is, yet it can be transmuted into everlasting treasure.  It can be converted into food for the hungry and clothing for the poor.  Any temporal possession can be turned into everlasting wealth.  Whatever is given to Christ is immediately touched with immortality. - A. W. Tozer

. People, places, and things were never meant to give us life.  God alone is the author of a fulfilling life. - Gary Smalley

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