I Keep Stirring Up Pentecost’s Inner Fire!

Daily writing promptHow do you feel about cold weather?View all responses

I never want cold weather to conquer my heart. I keep stirring up Pentecost’s inner fire and passionate, warm-hearted desire for inner peace and joy.

Jesus said that having the Holy Spirit freely living inside of you is like having rivers of living water flowing from within you. He wants the fruit of His Spirit to overflow from your innermost being as inner rivers that gush forth with the heart-felt warmth of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

The power of the Spirit’s unhindered and unquenched presence in you, casts out the spiritual coldness of fear and timidity. “Christ in you,” freely flowing (without you hindering Him or holding Him back) as inner rivers, is the hope of “joy unspeakable and full of glory” and the power of “peace that passes understanding.”

You don’t need to mentally understand the great mystery of who the Spirit is and how He works inside of you. You need to go beyond human understanding and continually experience the awe of Christ’s glory by radically surrendering to and submitting to His inner presence and authority. Let the Spirit of Jesus have full access and total control within you. Let His inner rivers continually sweep aside everything inside you that tries to extinguish the presence of His inner fire.

Modern Christianity has far too many studies about the Holy Spirit and drastically too few glorious demonstrations of the presence and reality of the Sprit at work in ordinary Christ-followers. We have accepted “eloquence and human wisdom” (1 Corinthians 2:1) as a substitute for “a demonstration of the Spirit’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:4). It’s urgent that contemporary Christians begin “to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you,” (2 Timothy 1:6). This can help: Search for The Joy of Early Christianity.

When you’re running from the God of limitless presence, there’s nowhere to hide. Trying to avoid accountability to the God of unlimited knowledge is a waste of time. Watching white water run in a river reminds me of all of this. Here’s a poem I wrote about it:

Watching white water
Flowing by
Somehow calms
My question why
And connects me with
An inner flow
That makes me know
Love and peace
And suddenly
My problems cease
To be a burden.