by Dr Audrey Drummonds
The concept of Pentecost takes its name from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that occurred on the day of Pentecost, following the ascension of Jesus as read in the second chapter of Acts. However, the event did not occur as an unforeseen event, but instead as the fulfillment of the Lord’s feast called Shavuot when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. This day occurred 50 days after the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This event didn’t happen suddenly, as an unforeseen event, but was established in the book of Exodus during the time of Moses. We find this in Exodus 23:14 -17 and Exodus 34:22 – 23.
“Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me. “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread; for seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Aviv, for in that month you came out of Egypt. No one is to appear before me empty-handed. “Celebrate the Festival of Harvest with the first fruits of the crops you sow in your field. Celebrate the Festival of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field. Three times a year all the men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord.”
As believers in Jesus Christ, we celebrate Passover and the resurrection of Jesus, which is the first season of the Lord. With this season comes first fruits and unleavened bread festivals. After the first fruits, which we celebrate as resurrection day, is the beginning of what the Lord called counting the Omer or the feast of weeks. These weeks consisted of seven Sabbaths +1. This would make up 50 days after the resurrection. It was on this day that the law was given to Moses. After the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the feast day became Pentecost.
The feast days of the Lord are not Jewish feast days. They first appeared in the Old Testament, but they are feasts of the Lord for all people not just for the Old Testament. There are blessings in celebrating the feast days of the Lord. Believers in Jesus Christ don’t have to celebrate the feast days, but if they do, they will be blessed.
In Exodus 23:22-23, the Lord said, “If you will honor the feast days of the Lord, I will be an enemy to your enemy.”
The celebration of the Passover, first fruit, and unleavened bread is the season of awakening into our true identity as children of the Most High God spoken about in Psalms 82:6. However, as children, there is no authority over dominion powers and principalities of spiritual warfare in this world. Paul talked about that as long as we are children of God, we are no different with authority, then a slave would be. All of creation is groaning for the sons and daughters to grow up to take over the dominion and authority that the enemy of God stole from the first Adam. Jesus Christ reconciled that authority back to the family of God; however, the power of that authority is given to the Holy Spirit. Many believers in Jesus Christ never truly receive the quickening of the power of the Holy Spirit. They may have knowledge about the Holy Spirit, but they fail to have a Pentecostal season.
A time of Pentecost is more than just receiving a prayer language, or the gift of tongues, as some denominations refer to it. Paul tells us in first Corinthians 13:1-3, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. And if I had the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing and if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”
Receiving the power of the Holy Spirit is about being able to unconditionally love one another as God first loved us while we were in darkness, ignorance, and self-glorification. Loving unconditionally, can only happen when the Holy Spirit is present, for this love is divine love that comes from above. This is a sacrificial love of giving to someone else, with no agenda.
Jesus said in Matthew 5:43-48, “You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and praise for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and send rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax gatherers do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore, you are to be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.”
Jesus is giving us the inside on how to “be” perfect as our heavenly father is perfect. It comes through loving our enemies and those that persecute us. Jesus makes a statement that He knows is not possible for us to accomplish of our own. There might be times we can forgive and love our enemies, but to reconcile with no remembrance of the hurt or emotional scars takes a Divine encounter with the Holy Spirit.
In 2 Corinthians 5:16 – 20 we read Paul’s words, “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
The voice of God to accomplish reconciliation is in Christ. Christ is in us. Our identity has been redeemed. Christ reconciled the world to himself, counting no man’s sins, trespasses, or iniquities against them. He then sent the Holy Spirit to breathe the breath of Divine Life, Love, and Light into our hearts.
The power of the Holy Spirit is in us as us. The power of Divine love has the potential to shine through us, and has the ability to awaken the truth in others so they too are aware that they are a child of the Most High God.
Mankind never lost its DNA identity of being created in the image and likeness as a godkind (Genesis 1:26-27). What was lost was our authority to rule and reign on the earth as it is in heaven.
The good news of Jesus Christ is that the kingdom of heaven is now. The penalty of losing our authority with the first Adam by disobedience and ignorance has been paid. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ brought reconciliation of all things. We don’t have to keep living a lie that mankind is a sinner and that we will never be good enough for God.
Let’s turn to Psalms 139: 7-18,
“Where can I go from Thy spirit? Or where can I flee from Thy presence? I ascend to heaven, Thou art there; I make my bed and sheol, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Thy hand will lead me, and Thy right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night, even the darkness is not dark to Thee, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are like Thee. For Thou didst form my inward parts; Thou did weave me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to Thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Thy works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from me from Thee, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Thy book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them. How precious also are Thy thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with Thee.”
This is the blessing of the free gift we have today, to know in our spirit, soul and body, the finished work of Jesus Christ. King David gave us this prophecy that was already established before the creation of time, before Genesis 1.
In Colossians 2:9 – 10, “For in Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and in him you have been made complete and he is the head over all rule and authority.”
Today, you are complete in Christ Jesus whether you believe it or not. Humanity is God’s love creation in a form. Believing is an act of the Holy Spirit drawing you by the Love of God to the unveiling of Christ in you, the glory of God. We are told in Deuteronomy 32:18 that the children of God had neglected The Rock who begot them, and forgot the God who gave them birth. We must ask the same question. Did we forget the Divine Father who created us and knew us before we were conceived in our mother’s womb (Jeremiah 1:5)? Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say I am?” Peter responded saying, “Thou are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Jesus responded saying, “On this ROCK I will build My church (bride, body of Christ), and the gates of hell will not prevail.”
This is an identity issue. Who we say Jesus Christ is to us, should be a reflection of LIFE, LOVE, and LIGHT back to Him. Who do we say we are? Does the world know that you are a Christ One by your LOVE?
John writes in his letter 1 John 4:15-19, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, abides in him and he in God. And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love because He first loved us.”
God gave you birth in Genesis One. He gave you form when you were conceived in your mother’s womb. He quickened your spirit to be born again when the Holy Spirit gave you the experience of knowing Jesus Christ personally who is the One New Man – Christ, in whom Jesus is the head, and we are the body as a many membered of Him.
In closing, Ephesians 4:4-7, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace was given, according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”