Thought of the Day !!

And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.
Acts 2:6

The day of Pentecost has arrived and God's Holy Spirit has been poured out into all the disciples who were waiting in the Upper Room. When filled with the Spirit of God, they began to speak of the power of God. "The crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each."

The miracle here was that all the people heard about God's power this day. They came from all over and spoke different languages. And even those who spoke two or three languages heard this proclamation in their own native tongues. You might say that it was a reverse of the curse of Babel. If you remember your Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel, you will remember that God was not pleased with the people building this huge tower that would reach the heavens. So he scattered them by making them speak different languages. If they couldn't communicate, they couldn't finish their project.

At Babel God divided. But at Pentecost He united. And the church began.

Our Church should look back at her beginnings to get a little help for the way to live today. We are supposed to be a Church that is united as Christians in Christian love. Yet it sometimes seems that we do more dividing than we do uniting. We argue over hot-topic issues such as homosexuality or abortion or the authority of Scripture or whether or not a woman can be a pastor. These, along with many other issues, divide us. Denominations are started while others are just split.

The same type of things can happen in our local churches too. We can argue over who's in control or who's got the power to do this or that or even what color the carpet will be. And when our love isn't strong enough to survive these battles, we divide.

The Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost to unite us, not to divide us. Let us learn from God's Word that tells us this wonderful story and be uniters instead of dividers. When we unite, we work with the Holy Spirit. When we divide, we allow the devil to work with us.

In the love of Christ,
greg