Title: Confused?
Things can be confusing about so many things for us in today world?
-To wear a mask or not to wear a mask?
-If you’re over 65 don't go out have someone go for you?
-Why are some governors not letting things go back to normal?
-Why $1,000 a week unemployment?
-How do they get the Covid-19 death count.
-Does the money they get for each hospitalization effect the death count reported?
-Even the death of a man while being apprehended can cause so much confusion.
-So many news story's that contradict each other you don't know what to believe.
Our Scripture today is Acts 2 Click to read.
The things that were going on around 80 AD were just as confusing and misinformation was rampant then too. It was when God allowed the Holy Spirit to communicate with all people for the first time. The Jews and others in Jerusalem were there for the festival of weeks and they got to witness an amazing thing.
They were confused about some things in their world too:
-Sound from heaven like a roaring mighty windstorm.
-Flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on them.
-How did they have the ability to speak in other languages.
-People can running and were confused about what was happening.
-How can they be speaking and we hear in their own languages.
-Was the Jews that followed Christ drunk at 9 AM.
-Was it true that Peter told of a prophet Joel that predicted the this would come.
-The story that Peter told them about Jesus being raised from the dead true?
-Even today this filling of the Holy Spirit is misunderstood like it was back then.
-Some see speaking in an “unknown tongue” as evidence of being save.
-Some think its been done away with for our time.
-Some feel they are over whelmed by the Holy Spirit and are slayed (passes out) with power of the Holy Spirit.
I’m one of those that likes to get to the bottom line. It may take me awhile and then sometimes the Lord saves me the struggle and gives me the answer pretty fast.
Why did the Holy Spirit come and what is His meaning for us today.
Ephesians 1:13-14 NLT
13 And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. 14 The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.
Some people think we can’t lose our salvation at all for any reason and some think we can lose it for just about any violation of anything they see as a sin. Extremist are dangerous.
God gave us the Holy Spirit to allow us to know we are saved. That doesn’t mean we have to be on a Holy Ghost high all the time. It does mean that we can know he is with us all the time and is right with us through the good times and the bad times to help us in whatever we need.
Ephesians 1:13 says the Holy Spirit identified us as his own.
Ephesians 1:14 the last sentence is so important in knowing why we have the Holy Spirit: He did this (gave us the Holy Spirit) so we would praise and glorify him.
Are we Praising and Glorifying Him in our lives privately and publicly?
