Thought for Thursday
Hereby we know that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit. 1 John 4:13
Before the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, according to the mixture of fact and legend that has grown up around that event, the Texan leader Lieutenant Colonel Buck Travis used his sword to draw a line in the sand after explaining to his 180 soldiers that there was no hope of their survival in the coming battle. The Mexicans, numbering in the thousands, had raised a flag indicating they would take no prisoners. Travis invited those who would stand and die with him to step over the line. All but one did, a French Jew named Louis ‘Moses’ Rose. Saying he was not ready to die, and that he loved his family, Rose went over the fortress wall during the night and made his way home to Nacogdoches, where he lived out his life as a butcher. Until the Alamo, Rose had been a good soldier, but when the line was drawn, he did not have within him the willingness to die for his cause like his fellow soldiers. That spirit of willingness to face certain death for their cause marked the 179 who were slain with Travis as heroes, just as the Holy Spirit Who lives within each child of God marks them as those who will live and die for their Lord.
Amazement filled those who saw the Christians in Jerusalem in the hours and days that followed Pentecost. Never before had they seen local people capable of speaking in the languages of all the people who were visiting Jerusalem. They were amazed at the boldness and power displayed by men who only two months before had fled in fear at Jesus’ arrest. In the years to come, as persecutions came and went, many continued to be amazed at the courage and devotion displayed by the Christians. But the Christians were not surprised. At Pentecost, they had experienced the power of the Holy Spirit as He came upon them and gave them the devotion and faithfulness that marked them as belonging to Christ. That same Spirit enabled the martyrs down through the ages to go bravely to their deaths. He enabled Gospel preachers to carry their message to neighbours and fields afar at great cost and peril. He enabled Christian families to raise their children according to the Word of God, enabled Christians of all types to live for their Lord amid all forms of opposition and rejection, and enables Christians today to emulate those who have gone before to make the same sacrifices and live before the world as those who serve a risen and returning Saviour.
The Spirit who God has given to us is the One Who teaches us: ‘Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God’ (1 Corinthians 2:12). That same Spirit marks us as special vessels for our God: ‘Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? (1 Corinthians 3:16)
How much of the Spirit’s power and leading do our lives show? – Jim MacIntosh