Ensign: I Believe In The Holy Spirit
All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. Isaiah 18:3
AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS. 5 August 2017
Happy Birthday Mom!
Or "Mamaw", as all the grandkids call her. Today she'd be eighty-one years old; of course, I won't be calling her today to wish her a Happy Birthday as she died five years ago. And there are people who knew her and are related to her who'll say she's "gone to be with the Lord" or some such euphemism that I can't . . . quite . . . bring myself to say. It's not that I don't believe that she is -- or that I do believe she isn't, whatever sounds more grammatical -- with God, the Father almighty right now, it's just harder to not dwell on the realities of human life (at least I find it so) the longer you live. And the larger an organization, the larger an assembly like the church is supposed to be, gets,
the more you need statements like the Apostles' Creed to remind you what you believe.
I grew up in a church that didn't say this every Sunday. Originating in the late fourth century and distilled from the Bible itself, I first heard the creed when I was in my mid-twenties, and by my present age of forty-five I can probably say it from memory. A few weeks ago we were saying it and I noticed that where it states Who God is ("the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.") and Who Jesus Christ is ("God's only Son, our Lord,") and various things He had done and will do, it gives very little "screen time" to the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.
Outside of Jesus being "conceived by the Holy Spirit" at least.
For the next several Ensigns I want to look at the final article of the Apostles' Creed, and I promise not to make it drag! To say "I believe in the Holy Spirit" it occurs to me you have to have already conceded the second article about Jesus. For if you don't believe He (important: the Holy Spirit is a Person, not an "it") had a role with Jesus before He as a Person was born, how can He the Spirit possibly dwell with us now?
Jesus' promise of a Comforter at passover with His disciples in John 14 comes to mind,
but also Romans 8 with its (my opinion) more specific statements on what the Spirit does. We may know verse 28 "that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose", but that's practically a coda to the first twenty-seven. That we walk in the Spirit, that the Spirit dwells in us, that without the Spirit we cannot please God, and so on.
Take the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost or Spirit of God) out and the whole structure crumbles.
As we crumble. So it matters very much what you believe.
And Who you believe in,
David
Happy Birthday Mom!
Or "Mamaw", as all the grandkids call her. Today she'd be eighty-one years old; of course, I won't be calling her today to wish her a Happy Birthday as she died five years ago. And there are people who knew her and are related to her who'll say she's "gone to be with the Lord" or some such euphemism that I can't . . . quite . . . bring myself to say. It's not that I don't believe that she is -- or that I do believe she isn't, whatever sounds more grammatical -- with God, the Father almighty right now, it's just harder to not dwell on the realities of human life (at least I find it so) the longer you live. And the larger an organization, the larger an assembly like the church is supposed to be, gets,
the more you need statements like the Apostles' Creed to remind you what you believe.
I grew up in a church that didn't say this every Sunday. Originating in the late fourth century and distilled from the Bible itself, I first heard the creed when I was in my mid-twenties, and by my present age of forty-five I can probably say it from memory. A few weeks ago we were saying it and I noticed that where it states Who God is ("the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.") and Who Jesus Christ is ("God's only Son, our Lord,") and various things He had done and will do, it gives very little "screen time" to the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.
Outside of Jesus being "conceived by the Holy Spirit" at least.
For the next several Ensigns I want to look at the final article of the Apostles' Creed, and I promise not to make it drag! To say "I believe in the Holy Spirit" it occurs to me you have to have already conceded the second article about Jesus. For if you don't believe He (important: the Holy Spirit is a Person, not an "it") had a role with Jesus before He as a Person was born, how can He the Spirit possibly dwell with us now?
Jesus' promise of a Comforter at passover with His disciples in John 14 comes to mind,
but also Romans 8 with its (my opinion) more specific statements on what the Spirit does. We may know verse 28 "that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose", but that's practically a coda to the first twenty-seven. That we walk in the Spirit, that the Spirit dwells in us, that without the Spirit we cannot please God, and so on.
Take the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost or Spirit of God) out and the whole structure crumbles.
As we crumble. So it matters very much what you believe.
And Who you believe in,
David
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