MONDAY 4 MAY
Acts 10.44-48
Do we have the Holy Spirit?

As we read through the Acts of the Apostles, which should really be called the Acts of the Holy Spirit, we see that whenever the Spirit is poured out on people, there is a manifestation of God working and a real change taking place. Peter and the Christian Jews with him were astonished when the Holy Spirit was poured out on non-Jews. They had thought this wasn’t possible. But when Cornelius and his household started speaking in tongues and praising God, Peter knew that they had been filled with God’s Spirit and had them baptized in water immediately.

Let’s all examine our lives and see if there is evidence of the work of God’s Holy Spirit in them. The Holy Spirit makes us want to love and praise and magnify God and Jesus more. He draws us into a deeper relationship with the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit who inspired the writing of the Gospel causes us to have a real love of the Bible. He makes it come alive for us. The Holy Spirit draws us close in relationship with the Father and the Son and with other Christians. He forms us into Christian communities or Churches. The Holy Spirit makes us really want to obey Jesus’ teachings and hate sin. The Holy Spirit makes the things of the earth grow strangely dim, which diminishes our desire to become rich or to climb the ladder of success. The Holy Spirit makes us humble. He gives us a strong desire to share the Good News of Jesus with as many people as we can. The Spirit makes us receptive to special gifts like speaking in tongues and prophecy. He makes us conscious of the guiding hand of God in our lives, giving us wisdom to make right decisions.

PRAYER: Loving Father, fill us with your Holy Spirit. We submit our whole lives to You and pray that You will work miracles in our lives that we may display many signs showing that we are Spirit-filled Christians, through Jesus our Saviour and Baptizer in the Holy Spirit. Amen.

TUESDAY 5 MAY
Psalm 98
Joyful Praise

One can tell when the Holy Spirit is moving in a church by the praise and worship. Spirit-filled Christians love God so much they love to sing praise and worship songs. We have found that singing is one of the best ways we can show God how much we love Him. This Psalm was prophetic. It announced the salvation God would bring through Jesus hundreds of years before it took place. It calls God’s people to sing a new song to show God we appreciate the marvelous things He has done. When Jesus died on the cross He worked out our salvation for us. The message of salvation was to spread to every country of the world. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. The Psalmist exhorted the people to sing and shout for joy to the Lord in anticipation of their great salvation. They were praising God very exuberantly for what they had not yet experienced.

How much more should we praise and worship God as we have personally experienced His salvation and the infilling of His Holy Spirit. The Bible says, “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5.16, 17 & 18). Let’s begin every day thanking God for all that He and Jesus and the Holy Spirit have done for us. Let’s begin each day with praise and continue to praise Him in our hearts the whole day through.

PRAYER: Lord God, the greatest thing in the whole world is knowing You and praising You for all that You have done for us. We love You so much and we really appreciate our salvation more than anything. May God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit be continually praised for ever more. Amen.

WEDNESDAY 6 MAY
1 John 5.1-12
The Christian Life made easy

When we believe in Jesus and become Christians, we have to obey all God’s commands as we read them in the Bible. At first this may seem burdensome and the Christian life a real challenge, but it’s not. God makes obeying His commands so easy for us. Once we receive Jesus into our hearts and accept Him as our Lord and Saviour, He lives with us all the time and His Holy Spirit inspires us and makes us obey God’s commands by making them the things we really want to do. The Holy Spirit just fills our hearts with love. He makes loving part of our very nature. Remember all the commands of God are summed up in two easy to remember commandments: we are to love God with everything we’ve got and we are to love everyone else just as Jesus loves us (see Matthew 22.37-40; John 13.34, 5.12).

Once we start loving with the power of God we have a fight on our hands. The world, controlled by the one Jesus calls the prince of this world (Satan) is always working against love. Satan hates love and wants to destroy it. With faith in Jesus who is in us and with the help of His Spirit, we find it easy to defeat Satan and overcome the world. Remember, “the One who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4.4). Jesus left us with two sacraments which strengthen our faith in Him. They are the sacraments of water- Baptism and the blood- Holy Communion. Sacraments are signs of God’s grace and the means of receiving God’s grace. In Baptism our whole natures change. We die with Jesus on the cross to our old sinful nature and the Spirit of Jesus lives in us and takes over our lives. Holy Communion gives us a constant reminder of the death of Jesus and the power released on the cross which is power to love and power to overcome. If we have Jesus in our hearts, nothing can destroy us. We have eternal life. But if you don’t have Jesus in your heart, there is no hope for you.

PRAYER: Father, thank You for making the Christian life easy by giving us Jesus and the Holy Spirit to live in our hearts and give us the power to love and overcome the world. May our Baptism and our constant receiving of Holy Communion strengthen our faith in You, through Jesus Christ our Saviour and Lord. Amen.

THURSDAY 7 MAY
1 Corinthians 15.24-34
Death destroyed

Yesterday we read, “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5.12). Today we read that the last enemy to be destroyed is death. Jesus overcame this enemy by dying on the cross. He who never had to die because He was eternal and with the Father always, came to earth to die for us so that death would be defeated and we would never have to die! When Jesus came God gave Him complete control of the whole world. The prince of the world was defeated by Him. Jesus was completely under God’s authority and became obedient to His Father and died on the cross for us all. When Jesus died, Satan was happy, but only for a couple of days. On the third day Jesus rose again from the dead. When He showed Himself to be alive, He showed us that death was defeated forever. Jesus’ death and resurrection were God’s victory over Satan. Satan brought death into the world when he tempted Adam and Eve to disobey God and now Jesus brings life back into the world by destroying death altogether.

Some people doubt the resurrection. Paul makes it very clear that if there is no resurrection the whole Christian life is a complete waste of time. We know Jesus and we know the fantastic difference He has made in our lives. We do not doubt Him at all and this fills us with so much joy. Because we have Jesus in our hearts we are the happiest people on earth. We know we already have eternal life. We know death has been defeated and will not destroy us. We are on top of the world. It’s so fantastic to have Jesus alive in our hearts!

PRAYER: Father, thank You for Your wonderful plan of salvation. Thank You for sending Jesus to destroy death and give us eternal life. Give us all the faith to believe that if we have the Son we have life and power to witness to those who do not love the Son of God that they may receive Him and join us in eternal life, through Jesus Christ our eternal Love Giver. Amen.

FRIDAY 8 MAY
John 15.17-27
I have chosen you out of the world

As long as the Church remains on top of the world it will go on into victory, but if too much of the world gets into the Church, it will cause it to sink. This has happened continuously over the last 2,000 years. The Church which started off so much in the will of God, truly being the body of Christ, has let too much of the world in and has failed God. Whenever this happens God has to raise up a new movement of His Holy Spirit within the Church. Quite often the Church has rejected these new movements and God has caused new Christian denominations to be formed. Next Wednesday, the Church recognizes John and Charles Wesley as Saints. When they were both convicted and filled with God’s Holy Spirit in the 18th century a fantastic movement of the Spirit swept through England. The Church had sunk because it was filled with the world. The Church did not accept this movement of the Spirit. The Wesleys were forbidden to preach in churches. They were persecuted as Jesus said they would be in today’s reading. In the end they had to be formed into a new denomination – the Methodist Church. Praise God their influence over lots of people later forced life back into the Church and brought it to the top again.

When the world gets into the Church, true Christians have to be prepared to be persecuted by the church authorities. They must unswervingly proclaim the Good News of Jesus to be used by God as those who refloat the Church.

PRAYER: Jesus, it’s so wonderful to know that You who are in us are so much more powerful than Satan who is in the world. Encourage us to keep using this power so sin is no longer a problem to us. Help us to discern people with spirits which are not of You and help us to pray for them and love them until they acknowledge You as their Divine Lord and Saviour. Amen.

SATURDAY 9 MAY
John 15.4-17
Committed personal relationships

Jesus called His disciples and formed them into a group of people who have very real personal relationships with Himself and His Father. He made them His friends because He made known to them all His Father’s business. Remember, they have two commands: to love God completely and to love each other as Jesus loves them. Jesus loved them so much that He laid down His life for them and they have to be prepared to lay down their lives for each other. When the love begins to flow by the power of the Holy Spirit it is accompanied by a tremendous amount of joy. Jesus’ joy fills His disciples and their joy is made complete. When joy is complete one can’t get any happier.

We are called by God to be His disciples; therefore He wants everyone to be His friend. As we respond to His love and as we love Him and each other, we experience the same joy; our joy becomes complete. As Jesus calls each one of us to be His friend, He has a special job for us to do. What we do for Jesus He calls bearing fruit. Bearing fruit means showing we love God with all of our hearts and showing we love each other as much as Jesus loves us. Jesus wants us to go on bearing this fruit all the time. We must never stop loving Him and all the people around us. Laying down our lives means that we must give God time and we must be willing to sacrifice a lot for the people we live with. We have to be like Jesus, always giving, always forgiving, in all ways showing kindness, always being in control of ourselves, always being gentle, etc. As Christians called by Jesus we don’t have a choice. We are commanded to love and give. But remember, He gives us the power to love and bear fruit and He transforms us by His Holy Spirit so that we really want to love and are not happy unless we are bearing fruit. If we set our hearts on loving God and each other, Jesus promises us He will give us all the money and resources we need. He makes us rich enough to be generous on every occasion. When we have this loving, personal relationship with Jesus we know our prayers are answered. It is so wonderful!

PRAYER: Father, thank You for choosing each one of us to be Your friend. Help us to be really good friends by loving You and loving each other. Help us to be generous and kind and make us rich enough to be generous always. Make us really want to lay down our lives for each other and for You, through Jesus who loves us all so much He gave His life for us. Amen.

SUNDAY 10 MAY
SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
THIS WEEK’S MESSAGE

“A bell’s not a bell till you ring it. A song’s not a song till you sing it.
Love in your heart is not put there to stay. Love isn’t love till you give it away!”

Last week we saw how the sap of Jesus love flowed into us when were grafted into Him.

Today’s second reading reminds us that we were grafted into Jesus when we were baptised and accepted Jesus as Saviour and Lord. It also reminds us that we stay grafted in Jesus as we receive Him in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. When we are grafted into Jesus we receive the Holy Spirit. It is through the Holy Spirit that God pours love into our hearts.(Read Romans 5:5) The holy Spirit also makes us certain that we are grafted into Jesus and that we are one with Him. He makes the experience of Jesus presence real to us. He also makes the teachings of Jesus come alive and the whole Bible come alive.

Jesus chose us to be his friends, and then He filled us with His love. As He chose us and called us to come to Him He gave us a very important commandment. He commanded us to love everyone as He has loved us. He loved us by giving all his love away. This means that to love as Jesus loved we have to give all our love away too.

Love is not just a feeling or an experience love is a very practical thing. Jesus gave us ALL His love by dying for us on the CROSS. We give away our love by giving our whole selves to God and to each other. We give our TIME, our TALENTS and our MONEY and ALL that we have. We pour out our love by giving and sharing everything. We also pour out our love by FORGIVING.

We have to be honest and admit that as human beings were are all basically selfish.

Left to our own devices it’s impossible for us to love as Jesus Loved. BUT because we are grafted into Jesus and have become His very close personal friends He has given us the POWER TO LOVE. This power was released for us when Jesus died on the cross. It is made available for us by the Holy Spirit. The power to love increases in direct proportion to the amount of love we give away.

PRAYER: Dear Lord Jesus thank you so much for showing us what love is all about. You love us so much you laid down your life for us on the cross. Thank you for cleansing our hearts and coming to live in them. By the power of Your Holy Spirit keep on pouring love into our hearts that we may love in the same way as you love. Amen.