Pastor Haven preached out of Acts 2 and the Day of Pentecost and the giving of the Holy Spirit and the speaking in tongues. The cool thing about the story is as the Disciples were preaching the Gospel, everyone was amazed because they heard the message in their own language. As Peter was preaching, a miracle happened and 3,000 people accepted Christ and were baptized. The religious leaders accused Peter and the Disciples of being drunk because they were not only preaching the Gospel but they were also preaching in tongues so that other people could understand it. Peter responded by rebuking the question by saying that it was only 9AM. So here are two questions, when miracles happen, do we embrace them or write them off? The other question is what are you being filled with? Is it the presence and power of the Holy Spirit or doubt and garbage that this world has to offer?
There is a difference between having good intentions and being intentional. I have done an internship with the spiritual care team of a hospital and a part of the program was that I was supposed to come up with several things that I wanted to learn in that particular unit. What made it made it go from having good intentions to being intentional was that I had to come up with ways to meet those goals and I met with my supervisor to discuss what I have learned and how it was going. One of my goals was to be able connect better with patients, so I took a six week basic sign language course to better understand the deaf culture and to learn basic sign language. I even got to use it with a patient and his wife. A part of being intentional is having accountability, whether self induced or having someone else help me and remind be to be intentional in certain areas of my life. So are their areas where we need some goals and accountability so that we can be more diligent and intentional in doing things and connecting with others? It is pointless to have good intentions if we don’t put then into use.
How are you connecting with God and others. Haven referenced something similar in his message, there is a saying that we are the sum of the five people we either spend the most time with or who have the loudest voice in our life. So if we spend slot of time with people who watch sports, chances are we are going to become sports fans. We often pick up the language, attitudes and habits of those we spend the most time with. I’m all for connecting with people who look, think and act differently than we do, but are we seeking to show them Gods light or are they changing us for better or worse? This may be a challenge, but find a small group of people that are like minded that you not only support each other, but challenge each other to grow. In that group, have someone who is wiser and more mature and even older, so they can pour out their wisdom and experience so that we can learn from it. In the same vain we should be that person to someone else. I was a little bummed that I had to miss Easter dinner with my family because I had to work. As I was finishing up some stuff so I could go to lunch, my phone dinged and it was a message from one of the youth volunteers saying that there was a group meeting at church that night and it was open to ever wanted to come. So I went over on my lunch and we all just shared about life and had quite a few laughs and it made my night. Are the people who speak into your life worth listening too? Also, what prevents is from finding people to speak hard truth and to receive it?
What do we need to be more intentional with? In essence what are the areas where we need to grow. If we say we believe in God, but we would rather spend more time mindlessly scrolling through social media than spending time in prayer or reading Gods Word, there might be a problem. We can’t expect our relationships to grow with God if all we do is spend thirty seconds on prayer and reading a two minute devotional. If you consistently only spent five minutes a day with your significant other, the relationship will fail. Our relationship with God is just one thing. I’m sure God is tugging at our hearts to be mote intentional, whether it’s our relationship with Him or others, to habits we either need to develop or to quit and either developing or letting go of relationships with other people. I challenge all of us this week to find more ways we can be intentional and do it
Grace and Peace
Tom Boustead
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