Power and Fire

If you’re interested in cars you may find it really fascinating to know more about the picture above, of course you may not be that interested, but please read on anyway.

The picture shows the 1910 Fiat S76, nicknamed “The Beast of Turin” and it was built for the sole purpose of defeating the dominant German Blitzen Benz car. The ‘Beast’ has the largest ever purpose built car engine in history at, wait for it, 28.4 litres in just four cylinders! Just imagine the power that the engine produced. Nowadays most of our petrol cars have perhaps 1 litre or maybe even 2 litre engines, so it shows just how big the Fiat’s engine is. As far as I’m concerned its engine is over 28 times the size of my car! Just one more thing, because the ‘Beast’ has no exhaust pipes, flames from the engine block send out ten feet long flames accompanied by deafening explosions, so don’t stand too close!

You may well wonder what this has to do with ‘Thought for the Week’. Well, I got thinking about Pentecost Sunday (50 days after Easter) which is this week, and particularly about the power of God’s Holy Spirit. At Pentecost we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit (as we read in Acts Chapter 2) upon the disciples and other followers of Jesus. We read the words of Jesus in Acts 1:8 where He says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you” and again we read in Acts 2:3 “They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire ….. that came to rest on them”.

Now the power and flames from that car in 1910 is not needed in today’s vehicles, it is from a past era. But the huge good news for us is that God’s Holy Spirit, that descended on the Apostles then, is here today transforming lives (2 Cor 3:18). Believe and trust in Him so that you will be transformed into the likeness of Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit. Don’t you just want to be regenerated and made powerful and on fire for the Lord?!

Vic, 24/05/2026