Thursday – Letters

Reading – Romans 5

Highlight Verse:

“And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭5‬:‭5‬ ‭NLT‬‬

In case you ever wondered what my religious background is, here you go:

I was raised Lutheran, went to a tiny United Methodist church with a charismatic bent in my last 2 years of high school. In college, I started out with a fundamentalist EV Free church and then found the Foursquare Church (modern Pentecostal) which I stayed in most of my adult life (including a year and a half of Bible college).

Along the way, I’ve been a part of a couple of really good non-denominational congregations including the one we have been members of for the last five years.

I also ran sound for a Christian conference center in California for a few years.

I have seen many interpretations of the role and manifestation of the Holy Spirit.

My interpretation leans toward the Pentecostal side but I think we Pentecostals sometimes focus too much on the miraculous role of the Holy Spirit and ignore what I consider to be a more important role of the Holy Spirit – to fill our hearts with His love.

Yes, it is through the Holy Spirit that we can grasp how amazing God’s love for us is.

But, when I think of the Holy Spirit filling our hearts with his love, I get a visual of His love filling a heart shaped bucket to overflowing.

In other words, it is through the Holy Spirit that we can overflow with God’s love.

If we are truly filled with the Holy Spirit, we won’t be able to keep from spreading God’s love to all those around us.

In what ways has the Holy Spirit overflowed through you to reach others?
How would you like to see the Holy Spirit work through you?