From the Edges – Devotions for Life – The Eternal

From the Edges – Devotions for Life
Pastor Calvin Cook – June 27, 2024
The Eternal –
Scripture focus – John 3:8 The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

This morning, I am thinking about the eternal God. Though the full picture of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is way to big, way too much for us to completely understand, as hard as we might try. I think many times we have been so caught up in figuring things out, searching for answers that we will never have, especially on this side of eternity that we lose sight of the present and future of how the Holy Spirit a distinct part of God is moving and being.

All my life I have always been interested in creeks, streams, and rivers. Where the water in these ever-moving bodies of water come from and where they go. I can remember fishing at the Youghiogheny River with my Dad and talking about the flow of the river. We would have these little geography lessons. The Yough formed from a little creek somewhere and created a river which flows through southwestern Pa for many miles and empties into the Monongahela at McKeesport, which joins the Allegheny and becomes the Ohio River. The Ohio continues to the Mississippi which eventually empties into the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.

I can remember standing one time at the Gulf and thinking that some very, very, small portion of this water flowed through Dawson my home town. Though so small an amount it still contributed to something large and powerful.

This morning, this is how I see, feel and experience the Holy Spirit moving. We are called by God to receive Jesus, Jesus knowing his earthly presence was coming to an end with consultation with the Father has assigned the Holy Spirit to be the presence of God, the advocate, the instructor, the guide to continue to move and be and have being. Each of us, though we may think we are insignificant and have a very important role to play. That role is empowered through the remembrance of God the Father, creator of the world, bringing redemption through the shed blood of Jesus Christ as a ransom for our sins, to the Holy Spirit which cannot be controlled. “The wind blows where it wishes” and all we must do is through submission be a part of it.

The revival of an understanding of the eternal speaks to my heart today. God is not just in the present, but through the Holy Spirit is guiding us too so much more. Guiding us into the pathway of righteousness, convicting us of our sinfulness, but constantly comforting us by speaking to our inner most being, “there is so much more !” What we do for God will not only impact our lives but some other life. The tough question might be, are you guiding someone to Jesus, or distracting them away? Today you might need to be the Jesus that someone needs to hear and see. Proverbs remind us “to be wise in how we live our lives”. Wise of course through the leading of the Holy Spirit.

I’ve wrote these words this morning in my journal adapted from Ezekiel 37:9-14 – “I will put my Spirit within you….. and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know what I, the Lord have spoken and done.”