LET THERE BE LIGHT!
Greetings Foothills church family!
What a blessing it was for Kathy Garrett to share the message last Sabbath on the Holy Spirit. She gave us the introduction to our Holy Spirit sermon series that will launch on August 3rd.
Speaking of the Holy Spirit, do you know who the first person the Bible mentions as being filled by the Spirit? Maybe you guessed Noah or Abraham? Was it Moses or David? It wasn’t any of them. We actually find the answer in Exodus 31.
Exodus 31:1-5 “The Lord also spoke to Moses: “Look, I have appointed by name Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. I have filled him with God’s Spirit, with wisdom, understanding, and ability in every craft to design artistic works in gold, silver, and bronze, to cut gemstones for mounting, and to carve wood for work in every craft."
The context here is that God longed to live in the physical presence of the Israelites. So God invited the Israelites to “make a sanctuary for me so that I may dwell among them.” [Exodus 25:8 CSB] In preparation for the building of the sanctuary, God appoints Bezalel as lead craftsman of the furniture that would fill the sanctuary. However, God doesn’t just appoint Bezalel, He fills Bezalel with the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t fill Bezalel with the Holy Spirit for him to preach or perform miracles. God fills Bezalel with the Spirit to create, to cultivate, to construct, to order. And, in the power of the Spirit, Bezalel turned raw materials into ravishing masterpieces.
This is so like the Holy Spirit. In Genesis 1:2 we find that the earth is “formless and empty” and that “darkness covered the surface of the watery depths.” Over all of this, the Holy Spirit “hovers.” It is only after this hovering that, by the word of God, creation comes into existence. Through the hovering of the Holy Spirit, formlessness finds shape, emptiness is filled, chaos becomes order, as God says in Genesis 1:3, “Let there be light!”
The Spirit wants to do this in us. He wants to fill our hearts as He did Bezalel’s, with the purpose of bringing order where there is disorder. He wants to hover over our lives as he did over the earth at creation, with the purpose of speaking to the areas of our lives where emptiness and darkness prevail, saying, “Let there be light!!
Titus 3:5 “He saved us —not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy —through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
Be assured, church family, God is for us, God is with us, and God loves us!
Pastor Chris
We hope you can join us for our 40 Days of Prayer starting July 29th.
