Little Pentecosts by Kim Reisman
Kim Reisman
July 3, 2017
The disciples were transformed into messengers by the presence of Jesus in real time, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
The disciples were transformed into messengers by the presence of Jesus in real time, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
It’s dangerous to live your life with a past focus, with a two-dimensional Jesus, because you may end up following a tradition instead of following Jesus, God’s living Word.
Jesus wasn’t about hanging out on the “healthy” side of the river, the side of the “haves.”
It is better to stop worrying about the results of our evangelizing and instead worry about whether we have truly made the gospel known in our relationships with others.
Deep and authentic faith is meaningful; but can be costly, challenging, even frightening.
If you reflect on your spiritual walk, how do Peter’s various responses to Jesus resonate with your experience?
Yet, for our faith to be real, for it to be authentic, we must risk moving out of the shadows. So the question is, how close to the fire will we get?
Integrity as a core value of authentic evangelism is not only about our integrity, but about the integrity of others as well and allows space for the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.
Prayer is asking. It is a request. But here is the difficult truth: all prayer is answered but not all requests are granted.
Repeatedly, across denominations, both within and outside the church, I have encountered hesitation, frustration, misunderstanding, denial, negativity, and even outright hostility in response to the entire topic of evangelism. Few people, it seems – at least in Western context, are comfortable talking about evangelism, much less engaging in it.
We would do well to recall – especially in these days after Christmas – that the Gospels tell us about Jesus as a refugee child, whose family was forced to flee to Egypt to escape the wrath of a murderous monarch.
That our Prince of Peace entered the world as a helpless child and left it as a crucified outcast tells me that God’s kingdom is one in which self-giving, vulnerable, love reigns supreme.
But when we share faith with others, we don’t tell them what they should believe. We tell them what we believe – and more importantly, who we trust, which brings us once again to relationship.
Jesus reminds us that if we keep a seed in our hands and clutch it with a closed fist, it will never grow. We must open our hands and let go of the seed. The problem is that many of us are living with closed hands. When we live like that, nothing can grow either within us or within others.
The painting Reflections, celebrates the awesome process of changing into who we are and whose we are, God’s children, made in his image. God finds such delight in this process, especially when we reflect and acknowledge his grace within the journey.
It’s not easy to hold yourself in readiness. You have to be alert, your entire body engaged and prepared to move. You have to be focused, intent on watching for the necessary sign. You have to be willing to act, following the signal the moment it arrives.
These kinds of moments have come and gone in my ministry, and more are sure to unfold; as they do I need to ask myself, how am I treading? Lightly? With grace? Out in the open? Is it about me? Or am I the errand runner for the Spirit I need to be? Sadly for me, as my ministry moves
I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity, the Three in One and One in Three – the space-maker who is the source of my freedom, the one who empowers me to defy the forces that seek to restrict me to unbending characterizations or rigid roles.
Here’s the deal with the whole alarm clock thing – the wake part is God’s work, and God did a pretty good job of it in releasing all that God energy into the world 2000 years ago. But now it’s the get up part. The question is, are we going to sleep right through?
Get articles delivered directly to your inbox as soon as they come out.