As Christians we conceive of a triune God in three aspects or persons:
God the Father Creator
God the Son Redeemer, and
God the Holy Spirit Communicator Comforter
This is the one Sunday a year devoted entirely to this third aspect of God's Nature.
God's Spirit is symbolized by a descending dove, a mighty wind or breath, and by tongues of fire.
One could say that the Holy Spirit is active as we study his Word the Bible and inspiring me as I write this commentary as we believe it inspired those who recorded the words we read in the Holy Bible.
God's Spirit was said to be active as God created the universe and when God breathed the breath of life into the clay that became mankind.
It is said to have descended as a dove when God claimed Jesus as his beloved son.
It is said to have appeared to many in dreams and to others in the form of angel messengers.
At Pentecost it is said to have filled all the room in which the Apostles hid like a mighty wind and burned atop their heads like tongues of fire. It inspired them to overcome their fears, self-consciousness and stage freight to go out and preach the Gospel seemingly in languages even they didn't understand. To this day when someone has a new idea we place a light bulb atop his head representing the fact that he has seen the light.
Our ability to have faith itself is said to be a gift of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holly Spirit that claims us as God's own and imbues us at Baptism.
When we pray the Holy Spirit is active within us.
Our spirit is said to light up our eyes and enlivens our being and is expressed as our aura or soul--that which animates us. It is that aspect of our being that is eternal and returns to God at our death. It is that which make us human. In a sense it is God indwelling within us.
Western philosophy and culture has centred on logic and scientific method.
1Co 1:22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
Native Americans and others have conceived of a more animistic approach to the world in which everything in creation has a spirit even what we perceive as inanimate objects such as rocks and trees. In failing to honour that animism we commit environmental suicide.
The Holy Spirit is testimony to the fact that we can believe in things that we cannot prove to exist by touching or seeing them or conceiving of them logically with our minds.
In the end we must remember that God is one being. He was made man in the person of Jesus the Christ who made manifest God's Love for mankind in his very being. Because we believe the testimony of those who claim he lived we are called Christians but we worship God the Father Creator not his human aspect the Son. So to the Holy Spirit is our expression of God communicating with us his creation. When we sense God's love his spirit is active in our lives as it is when we express that love in praise and thanksgiving to God and in expressions of caring for his creation our fellow man and the world around us.
We are one with every theological expression of the creator's presence in our lives that yearns for the good of his creation. We need to acknowledge that there is more than one way of expressing God's Truth and learn to seek those things that unite us rather than those that divide us. Love conquers all.
God the Father Creator
God the Son Redeemer, and
God the Holy Spirit Communicator Comforter
This is the one Sunday a year devoted entirely to this third aspect of God's Nature.
God's Spirit is symbolized by a descending dove, a mighty wind or breath, and by tongues of fire.
One could say that the Holy Spirit is active as we study his Word the Bible and inspiring me as I write this commentary as we believe it inspired those who recorded the words we read in the Holy Bible.
God's Spirit was said to be active as God created the universe and when God breathed the breath of life into the clay that became mankind.
It is said to have descended as a dove when God claimed Jesus as his beloved son.
It is said to have appeared to many in dreams and to others in the form of angel messengers.
At Pentecost it is said to have filled all the room in which the Apostles hid like a mighty wind and burned atop their heads like tongues of fire. It inspired them to overcome their fears, self-consciousness and stage freight to go out and preach the Gospel seemingly in languages even they didn't understand. To this day when someone has a new idea we place a light bulb atop his head representing the fact that he has seen the light.
Our ability to have faith itself is said to be a gift of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holly Spirit that claims us as God's own and imbues us at Baptism.
When we pray the Holy Spirit is active within us.
Our spirit is said to light up our eyes and enlivens our being and is expressed as our aura or soul--that which animates us. It is that aspect of our being that is eternal and returns to God at our death. It is that which make us human. In a sense it is God indwelling within us.
Western philosophy and culture has centred on logic and scientific method.
1Co 1:22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
Native Americans and others have conceived of a more animistic approach to the world in which everything in creation has a spirit even what we perceive as inanimate objects such as rocks and trees. In failing to honour that animism we commit environmental suicide.
The Holy Spirit is testimony to the fact that we can believe in things that we cannot prove to exist by touching or seeing them or conceiving of them logically with our minds.
In the end we must remember that God is one being. He was made man in the person of Jesus the Christ who made manifest God's Love for mankind in his very being. Because we believe the testimony of those who claim he lived we are called Christians but we worship God the Father Creator not his human aspect the Son. So to the Holy Spirit is our expression of God communicating with us his creation. When we sense God's love his spirit is active in our lives as it is when we express that love in praise and thanksgiving to God and in expressions of caring for his creation our fellow man and the world around us.
We are one with every theological expression of the creator's presence in our lives that yearns for the good of his creation. We need to acknowledge that there is more than one way of expressing God's Truth and learn to seek those things that unite us rather than those that divide us. Love conquers all.
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