Saturday, May 25, 2013
Acts 2:41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
RESULT!
The people who were drawn to one house by the sound of a rushing wind saw 120 of Jesus' followers with something like tongues of fire on their heads. They heard these people speaking in their own native languages about the wonderful works of God. They were amazed and perplexed.
That was when Peter stood up to explain. He said that this was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that had been promised many years before by the prophet Joel. Peter explained how Jesus had brought it all about, how He was raised from the dead, and ruler over all things, the same Jesus whom they had crucified. The people cried out, "What should we do?"
That was when Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38).
Some three thousand people gladly received the Word of the apostles and were baptized that day, looking to Jesus for forgiveness and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. No, there was not another hurricane sound. We are not told that tongues of fire appeared on their heads, or that they spoke in foreign languages which they had never studied. But the gift of the Holy Spirit was theirs. And when we ask that the Lord's blessing might be showered upon us and our young people, that we might be filled with His Spirit, it is not necessarily for a miracle of fire, or wind, or foreign languages that we pray, but for the Spirit within.
May this gift be ours also.
