Pentecost: Receiving God's Power Acts 2:1-47

I listened to a tape of Elisabeth Elliot, a contemporary writer, who has faced a lot of tragedy in her life. She describes her first year on the mission field in Ecuador. She faced three major blows to her faith. The informant who was helping her with the native language was murdered. All of her language materials, everything that went into the writing of a language that had never been written down before, were stolen. And the station on which her fiance, Jim Elliot, had been working went down the river in a flood. Now decades later, as one who has had many more tragedies, including the murder by Aucas tribesmen of her husband Jim, the death of her second husband and many other trials, she has a track record of waiting upon God. In that same taped message, she declares: "When I was 12 years old, I told the Lord that I wanted Him to work out His will in my life at any cost. When He set about doing that, I was amazed. I didn't think it was going to be that way. We never do. The will of God is never exactly what you expect it to be. It may seem to be much worse; but in the end, it's going to be a lot better and a lot bigger. What is your desire?"

Is yours a posture of being together on a regular basis with other believers? Is yours a posture of prayer? Is yours a posture of having the Bible open before you in personal, daily meditation and in corporate teaching environments? Is yours a posture of waiting upon God, trusting Him to, in His time, fulfill His promises in a way that you do not get overly self-impressed with the victories of your life and overly discouraged at what appear to be the losses and tragedies that come your way?

Let me assure you that if you are not in this kind of posture you will find other postures that will quench the Holy Spirit's presence in your life.

There are all kinds of weird spirituality mesmerizing contemporary men and women in our culture. Tuesday's Orange County Register has a fascinating article describing persons who are hiring experts to check the energy balance of their homes and offices. People hunger for power. Deep within our hearts there is a need for energy and the right energy balance. This article describes a "feng shui" practitioner who, for a hundred dollars an hour, will stroll through your home and tell you what to add and take away to bring the energy into balance. This priest comes into your home or office and arranges items, moves doors, puts up mirrors and all sorts of other manipulations to achieve "good chi." It's an endeavor to attract good spirits and repel evil spirits.

I received a letter this week from one of our St. Andrew's community who is an architect. She wrote about university classes that are being taught on feng shui. She has had clients that have wanted her to do this to venues she was designing. She writes about a friend of hers who worked in an office that was feng shui'd by a priest whose claim to fame was that he had feng shui'd the White House for President Clinton. The posture of receiving God's power is not through such pagan exercises as feng shui, astrology, palm reading and fortune-telling. It's by gathering with brothers and sisters in Christ in the spirit of prayer, with a Bible that is open and a heart that is waiting and receptive to God's guidance.