A Few Thoughts About The Spirit - Pt. 3

Today we're going to be continuing a short Daily Devo series on the Holy Spirit of God.  

Some years ago, I remember having a conversation with a young woman who told me that she had come to point in her life where she knew she believed in God, and that this belief had ultimately led her to experience Jesus. She said that "there is just too much good in the world for this not to be true...."

The first time I heard a sermon on grace was when I was twenty four years old in a Presbyterian church in Ocoee, Florida.  I can't remember exactly what the pastor preached, but I couldn't stop crying.  I'd been an agnostic for some time.  I was bitter.  I had spent years trying to fulfill the longings of my heart by appeasing one god or another. 

And I thought that the God I had learned about in Sunday school was angry and required negotiations.  There wasn't anything imminent about that God, and by imminent, I mean up close, personal, and real.  

But then there I was hearing how much God loved me, and for some strange reason I had to bite my hand to keep from sobbing out loud. 

I was experiencing true worship because the Holy Spirit of God was all around me and in me--and I was finally in a space in my life where I was open to responding to the urging of the Spirit. 

True worship is a response to God's Spirit, but before it can be a response it has to be a recognition. 

When you are truly worshipping, you recognize that you are connected to something or someone that is outside of you---that there is something deep inside of you that is humming with reverence.  You suddenly realize that despite all of the ways you may be tempted to think otherwise... there really is too much good in the world for your feelings not to be true.

And then it hits you.

You are feeling connected because you have been called.  Someone outside of that deepest part inside of you---the part that is humming reverence and seeing beauty--is calling you. 

The Spirit of God is calling you. 

And by the time you realize that you are being called, you are contacted.  And then your life is never the same again.  Because those atoms that make you you --the same ones that were pigeons and Oprah and stars---they share the same DNA as the One who made them... who made you. 

There's this Gatorade commercial that talks about how Gatorade is "in you." It's made of the stuff that you just sweated all over the gym floor or the football field, and you're just putting it back in. 


The reason you feel something when you begin to understand the unbelievable love of God---or marvel at the beauty of a sunset---or laugh with friends over dinner---is because all of this wonder, joy, hope and beauty... is in you. 

The Spirit of God is in you.  

May you spend today marveling at all the ways you are called and contacted by the Spirit of God.  Decide that today you are going to be open to the recognition of God's Spirit at work in the world and in you.  Determine that when you recognize the Spirit's work that you will respond in acts of worship---wherever you happen to be. 

And may the grace and peace of the our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always. Amen.