Today is Pentecost, todays give a man a fish lesson we may be focusing on the giving of the fish. Why? Well it is because you need to know what you are dealing with, looking for and living with. In this series I have been looking at teaching you how to fish as the saying goes to only give you a fish means I feed you for a day, but teaching you how to fish you can feed yourselves for a lifetime. But within this there is an important lesson, one we see manifest in the New Testament, especially when you compare it to the Old Testament.
Have you noticed in the scripture before Jesus only certain people were blessed with the Holy Spirit, Samson, David, Elijah, Elisha. what about everyone else around them? Most people never had the ability to know or understand the Holy Spirit, the time had not yet come when Jesus would pour His Spirit out on people for us all to be able to act like Him. Why is this?
Well for one thing, we had no proper teacher / example. If you look at each person I named above you can pick out a flaw in all of their stories, Samson had his strength tied up in his hair. David, was a follower of God but still let his selfish desires get ahead of his Godly duties, Elijah failed in his courage and Elisha while asking for a double portion had no-one to pass I on to. How is it that the other Israelites could then comprehend Gods Spirit and what it can do for them?
We therefore needed more, but not only did we need a guide we needed to understand what the Holy Spirit is. How many people know what fish is and that you can eat it? How many people know which part of the fish is food?
You rely on your parents or guardians to tell you what fish is, you rely on cooks, cook books or again our parents / guardians to teach us what is the edifying parts. You may already see where I am going with this, but without that guidance we have no idea of what the Holy Spirit is and just think certain people were more blessed by God and chosen to stand up and do amazing things at certain times.
When you study the Old Testament you see the Holy Spirit from the very beginning as He hovers over the waters waiting to be apart of the creative process when this world was made. You see Him being with people helping them do amazing things in their lives to help the Israelites, but when you look closer you see He threads things together so everything keenly fits Gods design, whether that be with Christs genealogy or making sure there are hidden gems within scripture that help to authenticate the scriptures, the people who wrote them, the actions of the times and God. The Holy Spirit has been a huge part of History, but it doesn't stop there Joel 2 v 28 is well known because it is used again by Peter on the day of Pentecost when he addresses a crowd and it says this, "and afterward I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions."
God Himself through the Holy Spirit in Joel shows what is to come. Jesus Himself was the very person who lived a life without question or flaw so He could teach us through examples and messages who and what the Holy Spirit is. Jesus is the one who revealed the fish and should us how it can edify us. What Jesus showed us was a Holy Spirit Lifestyle and He made us aware that we can all have it, in other words we can all become fisherman. We can go out and find the Holy Spirit because we now know what we are looking for and through this we can have a Holy Spirit filled life.
Jesus only did part of the job for He had to go back to Heaven so the Holy Spirit could be poured out, so the teaching parts of having a relationship with God, the edifying part being the Holy Spirit and living a Holy Spirit Life fell first to the disciples turned Apostles and then on to countless other Spirit filled believers over the rest of history right up until today when people including myself are still bringing the message to people.
The Holy Spirit, it is the third person of the Trinity of God, the Spirit of the living God and it was poured out for all to be able to have on what we call Pentecost. This was close to 2000 years ago an He is available for all believers to have. The Holy Spirit is the person that seals your salvation when you chose to believe in Jesus, He is the one who provides you with the gifts to fulfil what God calls you to do, but also helps you with your walk through life and journey as a Christian. The Holy Spirit unites us all into one family, He convicts us when we do wrong and celebrates with us when we advance Gods Kingdom. The Holy Spirit can also reveal the future or the past to us in greater detail, so we may either learn better from the past, warn or prepare us for the future. The Holy Spirit will always guide our steps to, or back to, God and He revels Jesus to us.
This is the fish, the message that Joel was giving came true in the great outpouring upon the disciples on Pentecost and I along with many other Spirit filled believers pray for you to have it too. You get the Holy Spirit by asking for it, you maintain this by continually fishing the shoal for it so that you have a steady supply (see the other 2 parts).
I pray this has been more enlightening for you and if you want to understand more about the Holy Spirit, then I would encourage you to study your bible (in whichever way works for you) and ask Jesus to show you more about the Holy Spirit, I promise He will.
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