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The immediate, experiential work of the Holy Spirit and the expectation of spiritual gifts.
Key question: “How does this text reveal the present-day work and power of the Holy Spirit?”
24,009 sermon illustrations through the Pentecostal lens
"God's plans are good—not necessarily easy, but good. Jeremiah 29:11 was written to exiles facing seventy years of waiting. The promise isn't instant comfort but ultimate hope. God's good plan includes the hard seasons that shape us for His purposes." — Charles Swindoll.
"The thief has stolen much from the disinherited—dignity, opportunity, safety. But Jesus brings life ABUNDANT—not in possessions but in spirit, not in circumstances but in uncrushable hope. Life to the full is possible even when the thief has taken everything else." — Howard Thurman.
"God's thoughts are revealed in Christ—the Word made flesh IS God's thinking toward us. In Jesus we see the higher ways: grace not judgment, mercy not wrath, cross not throne. Christ IS the bridge between transcendent thoughts and human understanding." — Karl Barth.
"POWER—not weakness! The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you! LOVE—perfect love casts out fear! SOUND MIND—clarity in the midst of chaos! This is your inheritance! Fear has NO legal right! Enforce what the Spirit has given!" — Bill Johnson.
"'Lean not on your own understanding'—because your understanding is fallen, finite, and fallible. God's wisdom is infinite and perfect. Trust in Him means submitting our limited reason to His comprehensive sovereignty. He sees what we cannot." — R.C. Reformed: finite trusting infinite.
"As we see prophetic signs increasing, anxiety rises. But God's care remains constant through changing ages. Whatever dispensation, whatever era, the believer can cast cares on the unchanging God. He who holds the future holds your today." — Warren Wiersbe.
"The Sermon on the Mount describes kingdom people—and kingdom people are visible. The city cannot be hidden because the kingdom cannot be hidden. Good works announce the arrival of God's reign. The world sees and asks: 'What makes these people...
"From Jeremiah's day to ours, God's faithfulness spans millennia. Through judgment and restoration, exile and return, church age and tribulation—His mercies never cease. Whatever dispensation, whatever age, the faithful God gives new mercies every morning until morning eternal dawns." — Warren Wiersbe.
"God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them." — C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves. Lewis captures the stunning generosity of John 3:16: God didn't need us, yet loved us...
"The poor who delight in the God of liberation desire liberation—for themselves, for their communities, for the oppressed everywhere. Delight in the God who hears the cry of the poor shapes desires for justice, for bread, for dignity. These are...
"Work 'as unto the Lord' cannot justify exploitation. The God we serve liberates the oppressed—including oppressed workers. 'Not human masters'—this critiques masters who claim divine sanction for injustice. True work for God includes working for just labor conditions." — Gustavo Gutiérrez.
"God so loved the world—but we must ask: what does this love look like in a world of injustice? God's love is not neutral. It takes sides with the poor, the oppressed, the forgotten.
"For the JOY set before Him, Jesus endured the cross. What was that joy? The joy of redemption accomplished, new creation begun, His people gathered. We run toward that same joy—the renewal of all things. The race is run toward...
"This promise was given specifically to Israel regarding return from Babylonian exile—and ultimately points to Israel's future restoration. God's plans for Israel remain; the seventy years picture longer periods of dispersion before final regathering. Prophecy is literal and certain." — Charles Ryrie.
"God's thoughts surprise the powerful and comfort the poor. His ways overturn human hierarchies. We think might makes right; God thinks the last shall be first. We value wealth; God values justice. The poor understand this inversion; the rich struggle with it." — Gustavo Gutiérrez.
"Mission is not essentially an action by which the church puts forth its own power and wisdom to conquer the world around it; it is an action of God, putting forth the power of his Spirit to bring the universal...
"Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father—this has been true in every dispensation. Salvation has always been by faith; the OBJECT of faith has always been Christ, whether anticipated in the Old Testament or received in the New.
"Eternal life is not just endless existence but the life of the age to come—resurrection life, new creation life. Sin's wages are death, the undoing of creation. God's gift is life, the renewal of all things. In Christ, we receive...
"The cloud of witnesses includes the martyrs of Latin America—Oscar Romero, the Salvadoran martyrs, all who gave their lives for justice. They ran the race of faith confronting oppression. Jesus endured the cross—solidarity with the crucified. We run toward liberation,...
"What are God's plans? In Ephesians we learn: to unite all things in Christ. The 'hope and future' of Jeremiah 29:11 finds its ultimate meaning in Christ. He IS the plan. Every promise of hope converges on Him. Our future...
"'Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death'—note: THROUGH, not around. God does not promise to spare us the valley but to walk with us through it. The shadow of death is still shadow; it is not...
"No more death—death swallowed in victory through Christ's resurrection. He wipes tears because He shared them; He ends death because He defeated it. The cross leads to this: a world without mourning, crying, pain. Christ's victory becomes universal experience." — Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
"In Jesus Christ God has said Yes to humanity. The giving of the Son is the great divine Yes that precedes and grounds every other word from God.
"The LORD is my stronghold—not armies, not weapons, not violence. God's protection frees us from the need to protect ourselves by force. Whom shall I fear? No enemy justifies compromising Jesus' way. Nonviolent confidence trusts the Defender of the defenseless." — John Howard Yoder.