Devotional #7
"And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them." Acts 2:3,
When Holy Spirit descended on believers gathered in the room. He filled the room and sat on each one of them like a fire. Fire a symbol of power has two functions one, it works inside the person on whom he comes, and secondly, uses the person with power to fulfill His mission.
In the previous portion of devotion we have seen how the first function of Fire in believer’s life works and brings its effect. We shall consider of Fire in using the believer for the Lord’s work.
We may say that there are three steps in general in a believer’s life after the first encounter with the Lord. They are, Salvation (forgiveness of sins and receiving the gift of eternal life), Sanctification ( A work done in inward parts or reins by Holy Spirit to transform) ,and lastly, Service ( to be used as His servants according to the gifts he bestows).
And the Lord God ….breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ( lives in original) and man became a living soul. Gen 2:7. God created man having two lives that are Soulical life and Spiritual life. With soulical life, man lives unto himself and with spiritiual life, man lives unto God. A unique creation of God because of no other in His creation is like man with two lives.
But after first man Adam ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, man fell into the dead state to live unto God. His conscience marred and ultimately perverted. Since then, man lived in that state till Lord Jesus Christ came into this world.
The Lord said unto His disciples, And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin (john 16:8). Holy Spirit reprove the world of sin, reproving the sinner about the fallen state is the beginning the of Holy Spirit’s work in a sinner. To work in a perverted conscience of a sinner, God uses his servants who are bestowed with Spirit and works like fire through them. You need a powerful element to quicken the dead consciousness (to live again towards God) in a sinner. Man’s natural power or knowledge cannot reprove the sinner’s consciousness (1Cor 2:4).
After the Holy Spirit descended like fire, “But Peter standing up with the eleven….hearken to my words ; ( Acts 2: 14)”.” Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart and said Peter and to the rest of the Apostles, Men, and brethren, what shall we do, (Acts 2:37)”. This is the work of the Spirit who works like a fire to prick and reprove and convert the sinner to God.
But if all prophecy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is reproved of all he is judged of all (1 Cor14: 24, R.V). The marvelous gift of God to work alike in the perverted consciousness of sinners and in believers who are out of the way of the Lord to reprove. This work continues through His faithful servants till Lord returns in glory.
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