I hope you’ve had a great week. This morning we are continuing our preaching series ‘Holy Spirit: re-ignited’ by looking at the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s clear to me from the Bible that God wants those who have made Jesus their saviour to live lives that are different. One of the main components of our salvation process is change — the Bible uses a slightly different word: repentance. It sounds a little archaic now but the meaning of it and the need for it remain eternally important.
In Acts 3, Peter addresses a crowd at Solomon’s Portico, announcing that Jesus, the ‘holy and righteous one’, had been killed and ‘raised from the dead’ (v.14,15). He addresses the ignorance of the crowd and calls them to ‘repent
Our new life in Christ really starts to take shape when we ‘turn back’ from our old ways. The apostle Paul declared in 2 Corinthians 5:17: ‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone; the new has come.’ What a great proclamation of victory for us: that we can live differently, forgiven and changed, when we turn our backs on the past and live transformed through Jesus!
The Holy Spirit helps us to keep on track, counselling us and empowering us to live bigger, better and more Christ-like lives. Today can be a day of renewal. We do not have to live with a sense of inadequacy or regret or be dragged down by the weight of the world. Let’s rise up today and live in the glory of the gospel and in the power of the Holy Spirit!