"'You must repent,' Peter answered, 'and every one of you must be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."
Crystal wrote on repentance. It seems worthwhile to look at the gift or reward consequent upon repentance and baptism.
This passage in Acts 2 might be called the first evangelistic sermon. For some Christians, even today, the 'gift' is the primary reward. Others (probably) the majority have focused on 'salvation', or more crassly put, 'going to heaven'.
The gift of the Holy Spirit is enough reward for anybody who experiences it as such. The H.S. engages in the life long struggle to change our recalcitrant egos into the 'fullness of Christ'. PTL.
3 comments:
Dear Larry,
You write, "The gift of the Holy Spirit is enough reward for anybody who experiences it as such. The H.S. engages in the life long struggle to change our recalcitrant egos into the 'fullness of Christ'.
Beautiful. Which can say more, than this rich praise, than this reward?
Blessing so full, so very full...
~M
Hi Larry. I think you're right. Those who focus only on the final destination (heaven) are missing the beauty of the journey with the holy spirit :-)
This posting fits well with some personal refections lately. I was thinking back to the day I became Christian. Salvation is definately what I had in mind. But it wasn't this thing in the blessed afterlife. It was becoming a better person here now on this side of the grave I was after. For me that was what salavtion was all about. Somehow I got caught up in stuff like doing this that and the other Quaker thing and forgot why I got into all this in the first place.
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