Daily Devotion for July 9, 2024

 

Devotion:

For an audio version of this devotion, click here.

Read Acts 2:1-16.

Nineteenth-century Methodist leader Samuel Chadwick once commented about the Holy Spirit that “the Spirit is more than the minister of consolation. He is Christ without the limitations of the flesh and the material world.” What did Chadwick mean?

Unlike our incarnate Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit is not limited by a body to one place and time. Free as the wind, He comes and goes as He wills. This helps explain why Jesus said to His disciples that it is better if He goes, and the Holy Spirit comes (John 16:7).

No phenomenon better captures the freedom of the Holy Spirit than the rushing wind of Pentecost. The Spirit came upon the assembled believers with the sound of a mighty wind. As they were praying, He suddenly blew in. Jesus says that people born of the Spirit are the same way (John 3:8). Spirit-people, like the Holy Spirit, are not programmatic or predictable. Rather than following rules, they follow a still small voice, the Spirit.

Such a man was Paul, whose missionary travels unfolded not as a pre-set plan but under the guidance of the Spirit. (He had to explain this to the Corinthians who, on one occasion, understood his sensitivity to the Spirit’s leading as a breach of promise. See 2 Cor. 1:17.) The actions of those walking in the Spirit can seem as mysterious as the motion of the wind, especially to those who are not in God’s kingdom.

The Spirit is also like wind, says Bible commentator John Gill, because His workings are secret and invisible. In the depths of the heart the Spirit speaks and breathes.

In Greek, the word for wind is the same as the word for breath. God, in the indwelling of His Spirit in us, is as close to us as the very breath we draw. God breathed into Adam, and he became a living soul; Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Gen. 2; John 20:22).

Personal Worship Option:

Lord, help us every day to be open to and follow the leading of your Spirit in our lives. Amen.