Yesterday at Church, our Pastor talked about Pentecost – 50 days after the Resurrection of Jesus. In ancient Israel it was the Festival of Harvest. Pentecost was when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples…a spiritual harvest. When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like a blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues (languages) as the Spirit enabled them. Acts 2:1-4. Can you imagine what that must have been like?

Our Pastor asked us what do we think of when we think of the Holy Spirit? I think truth. God is truth. God – Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Truth.

As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” (Isaiah 28:16) 1 Peter 2:4-6.

I looked up cornerstone. The first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation. As the first stone laid, it becomes the reference point for all other stones laid subsequent to it. Everything finds its definition in this one piece – the cornerstone. That’s how you know if it’s straight and true.

That’s how you know if it’s straight and true.

Jesus is the living Cornerstone, chosen by God and precious to Him, and we are like living stones because of the work of the Holy Spirit living in us and showing us truth. If we live in His truth…But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wondrous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God, once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10.

Jesus told Philip in John 14:9 that if he had seen Him, he had seen the Father. Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Then Jesus went on to say in verse 15-17: If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

The Spirit of truth…He lives in us and will be in us. The Spirit was there in the very beginning. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Genesis 1:1-2.

On that amazing day so long ago, Peter stood up and said to the people who ran to see what was happening because it was momentous and amazing, In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. (Isaiah 44:3) And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (Joel 2:28-32) Acts 2:17,21.

Sometimes it’s harder to understand the Holy Spirit. He is God and He is not as definable as the Father and Son. But He is truth and He is there for us and will help us come to know Him and understand and walk with Him because God is love and He loves you and me so very much so He doesn’t leave us without His help.

I’m so very grateful for the Holy Spirit. I’m grateful for God’s ministry who are willing to learn and be led by the Spirit into God’s truth…what is best in every possible way…and to share that understanding and grow with us…living stones…precious to God. On that day of Pentecost, the disciples were gathered in a building and a violent wind from heaven came and filled the whole house where they were sitting. Can you imagine? Because of that Pentecost, the Holy Spirit fills not a building but us…living, precious stones because of Him who dwells within.