{"id":9663,"date":"2020-06-04T00:08:07","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T07:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?post_type=portfolio&#038;p=9663"},"modified":"2020-06-04T00:08:11","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T07:08:11","slug":"2020-pentecost","status":"publish","type":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/gospel-express\/2020-pentecost\/","title":{"rendered":"REFLECTIONS ON PENTECOST"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"flex_column av_one_full  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-0  avia-builder-el-no-sibling  \" style='border-radius:0px; '><section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/CreativeWork\" ><div class='avia_textblock  '   itemprop=\"text\" ><p style=\"text-align: right;\">Philip Yancey<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-9664 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/hs-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/hs-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/hs-1-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/hs-1-450x225.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Our vocabulary, superb and precise when describing the material world, falters before the inner processes of spirit. The very word spirit in many languages means nothing more than breath or wind. Thus Greek and Hebrew use exactly the same word for the Spirit of God, biological breathing, and even the wind gusts from a storm.<\/p>\n<p>The words spirit and wind or breath have a clear affinity, as Jesus\u2019 conversation with Nicodemus shows: \u201cThe wind blows wherever\u00a0it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit\u201d (John 3:8). An invisible force from far away, whether wind or Spirit, has visible manifestations. And as a dying person breathes his or her very last breath and expires, life departs. Breath becomes air. Although the body remains intact, breath and spirit leave hand in hand\u2026<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-9665 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/hs-2-e1591254378383.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"246\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We are told in so many words that eternal life cannot consist of mere oxygen and other nutrients. For eternal life we must establish a connection to a different kind of environment. Jesus makes it clear: \u201cVery truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit\u201d (John 3:5-6).<\/p>\n<p>I think of an astronaut on the moon, or someday Mars, who must rely on an oxygen source to survive. Spiritual life will likewise fail unless we have contact with a spirit like the wind, the Holy Spirit\u2026<\/p>\n<p>At Pentecost the Holy Spirit (with \u201ca sound like the blowing of a violent wind\u201d) entered and dramatically transformed a tiny band that was to become the church.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-9666 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/hs-3-e1591254459394.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"357\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This event more than anything caused church leaders to include the Spirit as a separate person within the Godhead. They could not exclude the Spirit: evidence seemed as real and convincing as evidence for another Person whom they had seen and touched.<\/p>\n<p>The Holy Spirit, then, allows the reality of God\u2019s own self to establish a presence inside each one of us. God is timeless, but the Spirit becomes for us the present-tense application of God\u2019s nature\u2014the Go-Between God, in Bishop John Taylor\u2019s lovely phrase. Correspondence with the Spirit keeps us spiritually alive.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-8462\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/sig.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"249\" height=\"160\" \/><\/p>\n<p>~Fearfully and Wonderfully: The Marvel of Bearing God&#8217;s Image<br \/>\ny<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":9664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","tags":[],"portfolio_entries":[35],"class_list":["post-9663","portfolio","type-portfolio","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","portfolio_entries-english-writer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/9663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/portfolio"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9663"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/9663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9667,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/9663\/revisions\/9667"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9663"},{"taxonomy":"portfolio_entries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_entries?post=9663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}