We are offering ourselves up as vessels so that God can speak and act through us. To sum up! When we ask God’s Spirit to rest on us or fill us, we are not just asking for a feeling or experience. In every one of these cases, those who are filled with the Spirit speak the words of God afterward, whether through prophesy, tongues, proclaiming the Gospel, or singing. This happens to John the Baptist and both his parents ( Luke 1:15, 41, 67), the disciples at Pentecost ( Acts 2:4), Saul/Paul ( 9:17), Paul and Barnabas ( 13:50-14:1), and is commanded of believers in Ephesians 5:18. The NT more often refers to the Spirit filling a believer. 3:16) and that those who are mistreated for the name of Jesus have the Spirit resting on them ( 1 Pet. It also says that the Spirit rests on Jesus in the form of a dove at his baptism ( Matt. The New Testament uses all three words in Acts 2:2-4, when a sound like rushing wind fills the room, tongues of fire rest on the believers’ heads, and the Spirit fills them. I think these three words are interchangeable in the Old Testament, describing the Spirit acting with and through a human being to accomplish a miraculous purpose and usually to prophesy. Micah is also filled with the Spirit in order to declare Israel’s sin (Mic. In Exodus, a man named Bezalel is filled with the Spirit in order to craft the tabernacle and its furnishings ( Ex. In each of these cases, the individual engaged in one or more miracles of prophesy or divinely empowered violence. The OT says that the Spirit rushed upon David ( 1 Sam. Isaiah also prophesies about the Messiah in Isaiah 11:2, saying, “the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” The Old Testament doesn’t use this language often, but it tells us that the Spirit rested on the elders of Israel and that they temporarily prophesied as a result ( Num. What does it mean for the Holy Spirt to rest on us (or fill us)? This is the central line of the song, so let’s make sure we understand it well before we look at the rest of the lyrics. It declares that the Spirit is all the singer wants. It asks the Spirit to move, to fill the worshipers, to let Heaven in, and (as indicated by the title) to rest on the worshipers. This song is a plea for the presence of God’s Spirit. But is it the kind of prayer that we want to sing with our congregations? Is it the right kind of longing? Is “Rest on Us” biblical? Let’s see. The song is a corporate cry for the experience of God’s Spirit and its easy melody and repetitive lyrics carry the listener along on a tide of prayer and longing. Maverick City Music has taken the worship world by storm over the last few years, and “Rest on Us” is one of a string of worship hits that have charted on CCLI.
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