I’ve not broken a bone, but I’ve been a dry bone.
View all responsesI’ve never broken a bone. However, I was once a hopeless dry bone. Let me explain:
One day a man named Ezekiel had a vision of a valley of dry bones and he heard a question in his mind: “Can these bones live?”
While he was pondering the question, Ezekiel had this thought go through his mind: “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.'”
So, Ezekiel prophesied and as he did the dry bones began to come together in his vision and they were covered with flesh and skin. Then they begin to breathe and stood up as a vast army.
Then God told Ezekiel that those bones are God’s people. He told him that their bones are dried up and their hope is gone. God also told Ezekiel that He will put His Spirit in His people and they will live.
When my bones were dried up and my hope was gone, Jesus Christ put His Spirit in me, and I begin (for the first time) to truly live. That was many years ago and I’ve never been the same. The power of Pentecost (when Jesus put His Spirit in His first followers) has never left me and never died down within me. Now I’m over the wall for Jesus.
The big lie of organized Christianity is to make people believe that they are dry bones, and that God almost never speaks directly to an ordinary person’s heart. Because Christians have been trained to believe that God isn’t speaking personally to them, they rarely hear Him.
Churches make a big deal about the day of Pentecost but mostly ignore the message of Pentecost: God’s Spirit has come to make us live and to directly and personally lead us! Why Pentecost? The Holy Spirit didn’t come to be an occasional sermon topic. He came to directly rule and reign over all Christ-followers.
Churches aren’t supposed to program and control the Holy Spirit. When they do they create dry bones. The Spirit has come to personally take direct leadership and control of all Christian gatherings. If we aren’t willing to listen to God’s Spirit and let Him personally lead and direct us when we gather in His name, hearing a talk about Pentecost is meaningless. Every church that says it belongs to God needs to let the Holy Spirit take direct control of all that goes on when it gathers and bring the dry bones to life!
To turn a church gathering over to the Holy Spirit’s control so the dry bones can live: 1) Ask the Holy Spirit to speak. 2) Everybody wait and listen. 3) Let people share what the Spirit tells them. 4) Do what the Spirit says.
Pentecost announced Holy-Spirit-given dreams, visions, and prophesying (Acts 2:17). Today we have too often replaced the Spirit’s dreams with human schemes, the Spirit’s visions with human decisions, and Spirit-given prophesying with human classifying.
The Holy Spirit came to stay, not to go away and come back for a short visit on Pentecost Sunday. If you don’t want the Holy Spirit to take direct control of your life and your church, then you don’t really want the Spirit.
The Spirit came at Pentecost and began to enable ordinary Christians to speak in languages that they didn’t know. Today on Pentecost Sunday ordinary Christians are made to be spectators while one man talks to them about things they already know. Pentecost was extremely disruptive. That’s why churches today would rather present a sermon about it than to open their doors and experience it in Spirit-led action.
Pentecost empowers us to know what is beyond knowledge. Christians need to be continually strengthened with supernatural power through God’s Spirit living and working inside their inner being so that the risen Christ may dwell in their heart through faith (through their moment-by-moment full reliance and dependence on Him) and so that they can personally, directly, and intimately know the humanly unknowable–Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge. This miraculous revelation and wonder working power is needed for Christians “throughout all generations.” It wasn’t just for the believers who experienced Acts chapter 2. (Inspired by Ephesians 3:14-21.)
There is so much confusion when it comes to God. People get their ideas about God from their upbringing, from pastors, from TV preachers, from religious radio and TV, and from books and social media. Often, they don’t ever check out what they have been taught with the Bible and by listening to the Holy Spirit speak directly to them. Confused people who are proudly and cantankerously convinced that they are correct have become the influencers and trend setters for our culture. In reality they are insecure. That’s why they pontificate so loudly and cruelly. Listen ever more closely to the Holy Spirit’s voice in your heart. Have mercy on the detractors and distractors. They are hurting and need your love.
