Waiting for the Breath of God

UV 4133/10000 Waiting for the Breath of God But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria and even to the ends of the earth. Acts 1 v 8 The Lord Jesus before He ascended to heaven promised the disciples that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon them. Jesus had spoken of the promise of the Father- the Holy Spirit. Once Jesus was unified with the Father in heaven, the Holy Spirit was sent upon the 120 who were waiting in the Upper Room in Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit is referred to in Hebrew as the Breath of God. This is relevant in the middle of this second wave of the covid 19 pandemic where people are struggling all over India to just breathe. Even the name Jehovah, the name of the Father implies the two movements of the breath – breathing in is Jah and breathing out is Vah or Veh. Once Jesus died on the cross shedding every drop of blood, blood being another life-carrier, the payment for man’s sin was completed in full. Now mankind or as Joel put it, all flesh was ready to receive an outpouring of the Spirit of God, the Ruach or Breath of God. The Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinitarian God. It is just as trinitarian as we humans are – spirit, mind and body. To use another metaphor, the three persons of the Trinity have the same DNA or divine nature just as water, ice and steam are composed of the same elements H2O. The Word or Jesus is the water of life to fulfill the supernatural thirst of mankind for eternal life or life forever. It was prophesied by the forerunner, the herald of Jesus, the King of Kings by John, the Baptist that He would baptize with fire. The fire is the metaphor for the Holy Spirit. During His thirty three year stint or life on earth, Jesus never baptized with the Spirit of God as mankind had not yet been justified and sanctified to be united, filled, empowered by the Spirit of God. Now that the 120 had been justified by their faith in Jesus and His death, the sacrificial aspect of His death on the cross and resurrection on the third day, they were getting ready for the baptism by fire. Yet, they were not yet ready even at the point of the ascension of Jesus to His throne at the right hand of the Father. It took days of waiting in the upper room, days of expectation, days of devotion to prayer and fellowship and the imparting of the word of God, It took ten days of conscious waiting and on the fiftieth day since the resurrection, there was the rushing of the wind, the manifestation of the mighty Spirit of God as what appeared as tongues of fire touched the ones gathered and waiting in the upper room. The whole gathering of 120 believers, followers of Jesus who were in one accord were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, hitherto unknown to them but understood by people from different provinces of the Roman empire. They were mocked and made fun of by unbelievers and bystanders that they were drunk at noon. Peter, no longer the fickle, temperamental disciple empowered by the Holy Spirit stood and explained the phenomenon, the experience of the Divine inhabiting and filling the human body and taking control of their intellects and tongues. As Jesus prophesied, they had received power or the ability to be witnesses from God, the power to be a witness by character, a witness emboldened, empowered, enabled, a witness by miraculous expression in unknown languages. They were now ready for a dispersal across the length and breadth of Israel and across the world, to the uttermost parts of the world. The role and functions of the Holy Spirit were described by Jesus to be the Comforter, the Counsellor, the Encourager, the Enabler, the Empowerer, the Sustainer, the Advocate, the Helper, the Intercessor, God on earth, God in us, the Convictor, the Revelator. The Father is God for us, Jesus is God with us and the Holy Spirit is God in us.