Pentecost Sunday, May 23, 2021 - by Jim Tharp

When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:1-4, NKJV)

Before Jesus was crucified, He told His disciples that the Holy Spirit would come after Him. Jesus said: And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you (John 14:16-18).

Jesus remained on earth for 40 days after His resurrection from the dead. Just before He ascended to His Father in heaven, He commanded His apostles and other believers not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father (Acts 1:4). And then in Acts 1:8, He added, You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. After Jesus had spoken those words, He ascended to heaven.

About 120 believers, including the apostles, obeyed Jesus’ command, returned to Jerusalem, and went to the upper room where they prayed earnestly with one accord. After 10 days, the Holy Spirit came upon those believers giving them the power to preach the gospel. Chapter 2 of Acts gives the account of the Day of Pentecost.

National Day of Prayer - Thursday, May 6, 2021 - by Jim Tharp

The theme for this year’s National Day of Prayer is “LORD pour out Your LOVE, LIFE, and LIBERTY.” A law proclaiming a day of prayer for our nation was signed in 1952; for 69 years we have observed this special day! Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ considered prayer to be of utmost importance. He was a perfect example of worshiping His Heavenly Father. The twelve disciples whom He chose to train to spread His message realized in their three years under His influence just how important prayer was to our Lord.

Nothing would please God more than for millions of Americans to approach Him in prayer, confess their sins, and surrender their lives to Him. God would have His believers experience a rekindling of the Holy Spirit in their lives and get back to fervent, believing, sacrificial prayer. As stated in James 5:16 (KJV), “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous person availeth much.”

Prayer—Your Most Christlike Work - By Jim Tharp

The most Godlike life you can live is one of prayer. The most Christlike activity you can share is to pray for others. The heavenly seraphim around God’s throne never cease praising, adoring, and worshiping God (Revelation 4:8). How wonderful that we can join the heavenly host in praise and worship. But angels do not intercede. The ministry of intercession is, above all else, the ministry of Christ and those saved by Christ.

While here on earth Christ seemed to long for prayer time with His disciples. He sent them to preach, to teach, and to heal. But He took them with Him to pray. This was true on the Mount of Transfiguration. The glory of the transfiguration was God’s extra bonus. They were there to pray.

In Gethsemane, also, Christ longed for the prayer fellowship of His disciples. He repeatedly came to awaken them and plead for their prayer help. His request was for them to “watch with” Him, not to watch Him as He prayed. This is where they failed Him most—and where we fail Him today.

Christ wants your prayer more than He wants any other service or gift. You can do much in addition to prayer, but you can never do anything more Christlike or more spiritually significant. Prayer must accompany all you do and take priority over all else. You mean most to Christ when you join Him in prayer.

Preparing for the Second Coming of Christ - by James Thap

Jesus warned: “But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” (Luke 21:34-36)

The way to prepare for Christ’s Second Coming, is found in John 3:16-19: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

Our Bible reminds us that getting religious does not prepare us for death or for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. We also read in chapter 3 of John’s gospel about an especially important religious leader in Jerusalem coming to Jesus one night to question Him about His power to do so many amazing miracles. Jesus sensed the man’s hunger for spiritual truth, so His first words to Nicodemus were, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

Jesus is the only way to God. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). We cannot earn our salvation by our good works; we are all sinners, but Christ died for our sins. To be “born again” we must ask His forgiveness and turn from our sins—that is called repentance. We are saved by God’s grace when we have faith in Jesus and believe that He is the son of God, who died on the cross to pay our debt of sin, and that He was resurrected and is seated at the right hand of our Heavenly Father hearing our prayers. We are now adopted into God’s redeemed family and ready to live the Christian life. Of course, this includes a life of prayer, reading our Bible, taking time to worship God, growing in faith, and finding a body of believers for fellowship.

TRUE CHRISTIAN LOVE - by Jim Tharp

John 13:34-35

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have

loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you

are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Jesus came to earth in human form and was empowered to demonstrate what came to be known as agape love. Agape love is different from any other kind of love. Jesus longed for the day when His disciples would receive the Holy Spirit of power to love as He loved. This would happen when the Holy Spirit was poured out on 120 believers on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4).

During the few years of training His disciples He could see their lack of love for one another. A few of them would seek to take authority over the others. They argued about who would be the most powerful. It was at these times of selfish arguments that Jesus would interrupt and remind them of the time after His death, resurrection, and ascension back to Heaven that He and their Heavenly Father would pour out the Holy Spirit upon them. Their praying faithfully for the Holy Spirit and their complete surrender to His will would empower them for ministry. Jesus trained His disciples to share the message of His gospel. But they were not to go out trying to preach the gospel until they had been filled with the Holy Spirit. His final command to them just before His ascension was to go back into the city of Jerusalem and begin praying for the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4-5).

When those 120 believers were filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts, chapters 1-5), they launched their first evangelistic service in Jerusalem where many thousands of people had gathered. That first gospel message preached by the apostle Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, brought conviction of sin and a desire to get right with God to 3,000 penitent sinners on that first day. These thousands were added to the church of 120, and we read about the gatherings of these new Christian believers for worship and fellowship. Those believers full of agape love were soon led of the Spirit to pray with the new Christians, many of whom soon experienced the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

The apostle Paul warned the Corinthian church, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things; endures all things. Love never fails. …” (1 Corinthians 13:1-8}.

As a minister of the Gospel, I am praying for all Christians in our churches to pray for a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit that will bring heart-warming love. If we do this, it could allow God to open the heavens and pour out on weak churches and a wicked world the greatest revival in the history of His church!

Preparation for Revival - by Jim Tharp

I believe that God is saying, “Wake up and prepare for the great revival that I am going to give.” It has been said that revival is first a rude awakening before it is a great awakening. 

The most crucial time in revival is at the earliest stage when the Spirit is rousing Christians and congregations from their slumber and bringing about an awareness of their deadness. We must make a critical decision about waking up,coming fully awake, and receiving the whole truth about our undoneness and desperate need as God reveals it.

Clothed with Power - by Jim Tharp

“But you shall receive power when the 

Holy Spirit has come upon you . . ..” (Acts 1:8, NKJV).

“Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; 

but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are 

endued with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49, NKJV)

The church of Jesus Christ is filled with powerless Christians, many who are not sensitive to the Holy Spirit who was imparted to them in their experience of receiving Jesus Christ as their Savior. Actually, it is the Holy Spirit who convicts us of sin and leads us into repentance and then into the faith to place our trust in Jesus. Then, He abides in our hearts to help us live the Christian life—worship God, pray, understand the Scriptures, and seek the fullness of power.

Too many people who decide to trust Christ as Savior seem to think that this is all there is to the Christian life. Also, there is more to getting saved than being baptized and joining the church. We will need power to control our selfish desires, resist Satan’s lies and temptations, and find our place in life. We will need power to pray, power to worship, and power to know the will of God.

The Holy Spirit comes to abide in our hearts when we are saved. But as we begin this journey in faith, we must pray for more of the Holy Spirit. Realizing our weaknesses, we must pray for the Holy Spirit’s fullness. Now this requires us to surrender our hearts to Christ and devote ourselves to His will—not for just an hour or a day but for the rest of our lives.

Surrendering our lives to Christ is the Christian’s most wise and important decision after his or her experience of salvation. Being totally surrendered to Christ means that the Holy Spirit is within us to enlighten us as to who we are, what we are to do with our lives, and how to understand the word of God. He wants to help us grow in grace, turn all our dreams, hopes, ambitions, and strengths over to the Holy Spirit to live a Christ-centered life. This devotion to Christ will not only assure us of a successful life here on earth but also eternal life when we are called home to be with our Lord.