The Holy Spirit and Love

There is a video circling the Internet that doesn't really do much to show that we as Christians have grasped the greatest virtue in the area of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 13 - Love!

In it a person who identifies himself as a prophet invades the stage of a well known preacher, who obviously does not share the same view on the Gifts of The Spirit, and shouts and screams at the preacher.

After the so called prophet is removed the preacher in turn ridicules him in front of his audience.

Whatever my beliefs on the subject the name of the Holy Spirit was not exalted in this exchange.

Yesterday I sat and listened to a couple tell me simply how the Holy Spirit had showed up in a real time of need and uncertainty and made a real difference.

They listed miracle after miracle and talked about the peace and comfort that God the Holy Spirit had provided for them. The selling of a house in impossible situation, the "coincidence" of a door closing at last minute, the provision of a job at just the right time, the list went on and on.

The interesting thing to me is that one of the couple is from a pentecostal background and the other a brethren background and belief system. But yet that have been married and in ministry together for nearly 50 years.

Their story will probably never do the rounds on the Internet like the sensationalised shouting match I mentioned before.

But their simple faith and obedience has seen the Holy Spirit at work in their life in a miraculous but almost anonymous but certainly common everyday way.

If the greatest is love i am always left scratching my head with a puzzled look on my face when people "use" the Holy Spirit to cause such tension and division in the body of Christ.

It is no surprise that the Holy Spirit decided to inspire Paul to insert the most amazing passage on love right between two passages on the working of the the Holy Spirit in the Church! Doh!