The Reflection Series for this month is adapted from Reasoning the Rest, which you can read or download from the main menu. This month, we’re reflecting on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Read along with this series here. 

source

The Power of the Mission

One of the most haunting questions is ‘What do you want to do with your life?” Hopeless wandering is the case for many. They all dream dreams, but rarely follow through on them or find the means to do so. At a certain point of “maturity” we submit to the fact that the most reasonable, “responsible” thing to do is to fall in line, get a job and grow up. After dreams or visions of greater things, this life often is lived under silent protest and open resentment. Hardly the foundation for fulfillment and satisfaction.

The truth is, while there are some gifted with extraordinary physical and mental abilities at birth, for the rest of us, mediocrity becomes a stigmatizing label we bear for the rest of our lives. And while we might go through phases of extraordinary success or development, for most, these phases are short-lived. Therefore, when hearing the “hopeful” messages from the pulpit each and every Sunday that all things are possible, we may snicker silently as we evaluate all of our personal and worldly limitations.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not of this world, but the results of said baptism carry profound consequences in this world. Where our worldly life bombards us with reminders of our limitations, the baptism of the Holy Spirit releases a limitless God into the limited world we live in. The baptism of the Holy Spirit does not follow a path according to our known talents, skills or dreams. Upon being baptized with the Holy Spirit, one desire and one desire alone reigns: the desire for God. Our authority to dictate what we can do disappears; our ears are for the first time open to what God wants us to do. Our opinions on what we feel we can do disappear; we are for the first time open to what God believes we can do.

The life that follows the baptism of the Holy Spirit often bears a different appearance to the life lived prior to being baptized. The purpose is different, and thus the means to achieve the purpose is different as well. The baptism of the Holy Spirit ignites a desire to wholeheartedly serve God and share his Word. All else is secondary. God has always desired to release our true design and purpose, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the means by which we experience God’s design. He gives us power by the Holy Spirit to overcome a world of perceived limitations. Through this new purpose and mission we daily grow in our understanding of how much God can achieve if only left unchallenged and unobstructed, by a heart previously consumed by sin.

This is what the LORD says— he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43:16-19