Thursday, October 1, 2015

When the Spirit is obvious...

Acts 11:12-18 And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man's house. And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?” When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.” 
Not every event of the giving of the Holy Spirit is the same, but there are enough similarities so we know.  Peter had learned to listen to His voice.  He saw the signs they had seen in Acts 2.  And he saw the results in peoples' lives - "Repentance that leads to life."  Though the order in Acts differs as to when they believed, were baptized or received the Holy Spirit, one thing that always was there was repentence and faith, and great joy.  Those are signs enough in every situation to see that the Spirit has been given.

No comments:

Post a Comment