"PLAYING" CHURCH

                                                             “PLAYING” CHURCH

How many of us remember “playing house” when we were growing up?  We pretended that we were the mother or the father or a brother or sister, etc.  It was an imaginary way to reflect the world that we lived in. 

Are we “playing” church today?  At this point in time we are being restricted.  What do I mean by that statement in general?  We are “playing” church in the sense that we are gathering and praising God, which is what we should and must be doing, but the church is supposed to impact the culture and yet is not impacting the culture.  There are church leaders speaking out about the persecution of the Church that is taking place right now from governors who are “outlawing” gathering to a minimum of 10 or less or one particular governor in California who has gone so far as to ban singing in church and meeting in homes for Bible studies!  This is good but it appears it is only a few who are speaking out across the United States.

We need a Moses to get us to the Promised Land.  God chose Moses to lead the people out of bondage.  All Church leaders need to speak out against the assault against the church.  Fortunately, there are some pastors who have been speaking out and refusing to follow the mandates, but not enough.  The Catholic Diocese in my area has shut the churches down until further notice.

The Church is more than a building or even a gathering of people.  It is Christians with one faith who have given their lives to the Lord and who walk in His precepts.  Being a Christian is not just showing up at church but a way of life.  Having said that, it is still important for us to be able to freely gather without the government mandating what we can and cannot do.  We have a right as citizens for assembly and free exercise of our faith. 

The last time in our history in the United States that churches were shut down was in Missouri during the Spanish flu of 1918.  Saloons, of course, were allowed to be open.  In my opinion, this COVID 19 virus is a Trojan horse that is being used to take away our freedoms and our faith.  Yes, the virus is real and unfortunately, many, many people have died and suffered greatly.  It is precisely during these times that people need to find solace with other believers.  It is essential that the churches stay open in whatever form, i.e., outside or maybe less people inside the church.  We need to advocate for this. 

Watching a service on-line is fine but it is not the same.  It is the corporate gatherings that bring the Body of Christ together.   In I Corinthians 12:12 it says, “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.”  (New American Standard Bible)

 We need to “be the Church.”  We need to be strong.  We need to realize what is going on around us.  It is no longer church as usual.  We need to take back what has been taken from us.  We need to realize that church is not just a “social” gathering but a time to come together to give praise to God and pray but we also must be the mature church, the bride that is getting ready to meet her groom, Jesus Christ.  I believe the Lord is using this time to prepare His Bride for purification.  We forget that the United States is not the only place in the world.  The Body of Christ throughout the world is being persecuted right now with more martyrs now than any time in history.  Are we willing to give the ultimate price for our faith?

“Playing” church is a statement that means that we need to mature as a church.  Where are the strong leaders that will stand up and speak out against this persecution that we are now experiencing?  It’s not just about sermons and filling pews in a church or even, in some cases, entertainment, but commitment.  Do we sit back and let the powers that be dictate what we can and cannot do?  We need to get back to the book of Acts.    “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. ² Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³ They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. ⁴ All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues^[a] as the Spirit enabled them.”  Acts 2:1-4 (New International Version)

Yes, there was persecution then, but there were also great miracles and signs and the Church continued to grow.  The disciples received power from on high when the Holy Spirit fell on them and 3,000 were brought to the Lord in one day!  Why can’t the Church be like the Book of Acts?  We should not be afraid of the virus.  We should be praying for people to be healed.  God is an awesome powerful God but He chose to use us to manifest His glory on the earth.  The Church should be the strongest force on the earth because the God of the universe lives and abides in us.

The church should not be putting up the CLOSED sign but the OPEN sign that will never be taken down again!

THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT – Part Two

THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT – Part Two

In the last program, part two of the gifts of the Spirit, we talked about the gift of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing and miracles.  Today we will talk about prophecy, discerning of spirits and speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues. 

Prophecy:

Prophecy is speaking, writing, or otherwise communicating a message from God to another person or persons.  There were many prophets in the Bible; Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel and so on.  In Acts 2:17-18 it says, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, God declares, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all mankind, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”

Prophecy is speaking a message from God to people or an individual.  It comes from the Holy Spirit living within you.  Prophecy is to strengthen, encourage and comfort people.  Prophecies can cover many situations such as predicting future events like you read in the Old Testament; giving someone counsel or encouragement.  It could be for confirmation of what God has been speaking to you or for instruction or possible correction. 

All prophecy needs to line up with Scripture.  God will never go against His Word.  Does it mean that only certain people can prophecy?  No, I believe if you open up yourself to doing God’s will and have an intimate relationship with Him, He will speak to you and through you to others.  There is the office of the Prophet and some people operate in this gifting all the time.  We should always test what someone prophesies over you.  Ask the Holy Spirit to give you discernment.  If it does not line up with Scripture or it goes against what God has been telling you, then reject it.

Why is it important for us to seek to prophesy or listen to others who do?  It gives us spiritual vision; it edifies; it comforts; it can confirm what God is speaking to you; it guides you.

Discernment of Spirits:

Discerning of spirits helps to discern whether it is God’s Spirit; a human spirit or an evil spirit in a given situation.  This gift, combined with prayer for deliverance is often used to help people become free from the oppression of evil spirits.

Discerning of spirits is such an important gift, especially living in the world we are now living in where there are so many voices out there on television, social media and so on.  Remember, Satan comes as an “angel of light” to deceived.  Just because something looks like it is okay does not mean that it is. 

For example, the New Age Movement appears to be spiritual but it is really misleading people.  Even Yoga, which seems pretty harmless, is really seeking other spirits rather than God.  The philosophy of the New Age Movement is basically---- God is in everything (pantheism); All things are one (monism); Man is God; Mind creates reality; One’s own experience validates the truth.  In another program, we will go more into New Age Philosophy and why it is so dangerous to be involved in it.

Through the discerning of spirits, the believer will know what is motivating a particular person or situation.  A believer may be operating under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, his own feelings, thoughts and desires or receiving thoughts from a wrong spirit, an evil spirit.  This gift is very important because we need to know the source of what we are hearing or seeing and if it is discerned that someone is being oppressed by a demon, we have the authority in Jesus Christ to cast that demon out.

I have encountered a demon working through another person several times.  In each of these times the person confronted me and I spoke boldly back to them with words that were not coming from me but from my spirit---the Holy Spirit in me.  I have also prayed with others and when a spirit of infirmity was commanded to leave in Jesus’ Name from someone, another person actually saw, in the spirit realm, an evil spirit leaving that person.

WORSHIP GIFTS:

Speaking in Tongues

It is also known as praying in tongues.  It can be exercised at will and used in private or in public prayer situations.  It is used in this situation to build up the person.

On Pentecost, the Apostles who were part of the 120 who gathered in the upper room received the gift of speaking in tongues.  There were many people from other places who came to Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost and when they heard them speaking in tongues they were astonished because they hear their on native tongues being spoken.  

At other times, praying in tongues is the “language of angels.”  It is an unknown tongue, a heavenly language so to speak.  It is your spirit praying a perfect prayer that the Holy Spirit in you is praying.  Wow.  How awesome that we can pray the perfect will for our lives!!

Jesus said in Mark 16:17, “And these attesting signs will accompany those who believe: in My name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new languages.”

In Romans 8:26, it says, “So too, the Holy Spirit comes to our aid and bears us up in our weakness; for we do not know what prayer to offer nor how to offer it worthily as we ought, but the Spirit Himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads in our behalf with unspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance.”

There have been testimonies of people being prompted to pray for a particular situation or person and then find out later that there had been divine intervention.  A friend of ours had the gift of speaking in tongues and when he would go out to pray for some Native Americans, he would be praying in their native language.

If you want to receive the gift of praying in tongues and someone prays for you or you ask on your own, don’t be discouraged.  If you really seek it, it will happen.  Just trust God.  It is really a faith exercise.  It may sound like gibberish but do it like a child learning to talk or walk.  Next time you are alone, put a worship CD on and just start saying Alleluia, Hosanna, just open up your mouth and let the Holy Spirit fill it.  You never know.  One day you may wake up and start speaking in tongues!

Interpretation of Tongues

This gift is either given to you in your personal prayer or in a community.  When people are gathered for example in a prayer meeting and someone speaks a tongue out loud it is important that it is interpreted because the Holy Spirit wants to speak to us with understanding.   I Corinthians 14:13-14, says, “Therefore, the person who speaks in an (unknown) tongue should pray to interpret and explain what he says.  For if I pray in an (unknown) tongue, my spirit (by the Holy Spirit within me) prays, but my mind is unproductive (it bears no fruit and helps nobody.)”

The interpretation can be delivered by the person who spoke in tongues or another person.  It isn’t necessarily a direct translation but a sense of the message being given.  If there is no one to interpret, then maybe it was not intended for everyone.  Listen to what the Holy Spirit is telling you.

When you are praying in tongues, the Holy Spirit is praying through you.  There have been scientific studies of the brain showing that when a person prays in tongues, there is a certain area of the brain that lights up.  Also, it has been shown to boost the immune system and when someone is speaking in tongues it is not in the area of the brain where the brain processes and produces language.  This shows me that it is not a biological function but a supernatural experience.

The Gifts of the Spirit are given for a particular moment of need in the Body of Christ.  Not every person exercises every gift all the time or one person may be more able and/or motivated than another in exercising a specific gift such as the office of the Prophet.  Remember that in I Corinthians 13 Paul said that we can speak in tongues and have many of the gifts but if we do not have love, then we are nothing.

In our next program, we will talk about the Baptism of The Holy Spirit and how to receive it.

THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT – Part One

THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT – Part One

When Jesus was with the Apostles, He told them that the Holy Spirit was with them but that they needed to wait for the promise of the Father and then the Holy Spirit would be in them.  He was talking about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit that the Apostles, including 120 people, received in the upper room on Pentecost which was 50 days after Jesus had ascended into Heaven.  The Holy Spirit appeared in physical form as tongues of fire.  “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit kept giving them clear and loud expression.”  Acts 2:4

What is this power that they received?  What is this power that you and I can receive?  It is the power to hear from God, to speak in tongues, prophesy, do signs, miracles, and wonders, and much more.  In short, the gifts of the Holy Spirit can be made manifest through us as we seek the Lord.

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is the release of the power of the Holy Spirit within us that brings about the manifestation of His power living within us through the 9 gifts of the Spirit.  The Holy Spirit can manifest any one of these gifts through any believer anytime that He will want to do so. 

 

The Nine Gifts of the Holy Spirit are:

1.     Word of Wisdom

2.     Word of Knowledge

3.     Gift of Faith

4.     Healing

5.     Gift of Miracles

6.     Gift of Prophecy

7.     Gift of Discerning Spirits

8.     Speaking in Tongues

9.     Interpretation of Tongues

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit can be categorized into 3 groups:

Revelations gifts:  Word of Knowledge; Word of Wisdom

Power gifts:  Faith; Healing; Miracles; Prophecy; Discerning of spirits

Worship gifts:  Speaking in tongues; Interpretation of tongues

The explanation of the following gifts of the Spirit are from the article “9 Powerful Gifts of the Spirit From the Bible,” by Jack Wellman

REVELATION GIFTS:

The Word of Wisdom:

The Word of wisdom is important because it enables a person to speak with insight beyond their own understanding.  It is God giving us direction in a particular situation on how to act and apply that knowledge you have about something in your life.  For example, God may give you wisdom about not apply for a particular job or not to date or marry a particular person.

A Word of wisdom can also be given for the common good.  In a particular situation, you could be given wisdom about a particular group or person.  It could be a “gut feeling.”  Many times my husband will say, I just have a gut feeling about this and most of the time it is correct.  I am sure many of us have had this gut feeling.  Just remember that out of our inmost being will spring rivers of living water----the Holy Spirit.

The Word of Knowledge:

This gifts enables a person to know information supernaturally that they wouldn’t know through natural means.  It is simply the Holy Spirit giving us specific knowledge about something pertaining to us or someone else.  For example, a person leading a healing service might get a word of knowledge that someone in a particular part of the gathering was being healed of a particular disease.  It can come in the form of a word or something you see in your spirit.  Some people actually have pain in their own body where someone else is being healed.  I usually will see something like a word or a picture in my mind.

The word of wisdom and knowledge can operate together like it did for Joseph in the Bible.  God gave Joseph a dream that contained the word of knowledge about Egypt and the famine and then the word of wisdom about storing food to provide for people during the famine.

Dreams can be very powerful.  My husband has had many beautiful dreams.  I have had dreams that have literally set me in a particular direction.  All of us have dreams and all of us have thoughts that enter our minds and maybe word pictures.  We need to ask God what He is saying to us.  I believe He is speaking to us many times in many different ways. 

 

One day, when my husband and I were out of town, Marty got a sense that we should leave that very evening.  He had a “gut” feeling and as it turned out it was good that we left earlier than we had planned because as it turned out, he needed to contact his dad and several other things occurred that required our presence and action.  The Holy Spirit had given a word of knowledge and wisdom in this particular situation.

During the reception of Communion one day, the Lord gave me a word of knowledge about the Eucharistic Minister distributing Communion.  As I spoke to him about it one day, he confirmed the word to me.

THE POWER GIFTS:

Faith:

The gift of faith is a special grace given by God allowing someone to pray with extraordinary faith for something seeming impossible.  It is the confidence you have that what God has revealed to you through Jesus or the Holy Spirit through maybe a word of wisdom or a word of knowledge is going to happen at your command.

It is different than maybe just “ordinary” faith.  For example I have faith that when I flip a switch, a light will turn on.  I have faith that when I wake up in the morning that I can see, walk, hear, etc.

The gift of faith is necessary in our everyday lives.  In Mark 11:23 it says, “Truly I tell you, whoever says to this mountain, Be lifted up and thrown into the sea!  And does not doubt at all in his heart but believes that what he says will take place, it will be done for him.”

This is the kind of faith that God expects from us.  This is the kind of faith that needs the power of God to accomplish.  So many time Jesus said that because of one’s faith, that the person was healed.  When God gives us a word of knowledge for our own healing or that of someone else, we need to act on it.  Moses lifted up his staff and the sea opened up.  He also brought water out of the rock by faith.  Gideon defeated the Midianites by the manifestation of his faith in God to help him.

In our own lives, our granddaughter, Anastasia, was healed from a cancerous tumor wrapped around one of her kidneys.  A routine ultrasound revealed a cancerous tumor weeks before she was born.  We had faith in the Word of God and asked others to stand and when she was born, the tumor and the kidney were removed but the tumor was not cancer and now she is a very healthy 4 year old!!

HEALING AND MIRACLES:

Another power gift is healing.  God is a healer.  He is creator.  Jesus commissioned us before He ascended back to the Father in heaven to heal the sick.  Healing can be a natural process.  After all, healing comes from the Creator God.  We can also pray for healing.  Sometimes it produces immediate results and sometimes it happens over time. 

The gift of miracles produces mighty works of power that are instant and not explicable through any natural means.  Jesus performed many miracles.  He turned water into wine.  He multiplied the fish and the loaves of bread by the thousands.  He raised people from the dead and the list goes on.  

There have been healings and miracles that occur without human intervention such as mass healings at some events where no one touched anyone or said anything but the power of God was made manifest and healings and miracles have occurred. 

Just like it was mentioned before, the gifts of the word of knowledge and wisdom can also work hand in hand with healing.  A person may know exactly what to pray for as revealed by the Holy Spirit.  I think that this increases the person’s faith who is being prayed for and faith is the catalyst for most healings.  I know of some people who have not prayed for healing but have received a healing—even doubting Thomas’s. 

Healing and miracles are signs for the believer and the unbeliever.  So many times after Jesus performed miracles, more people believed in Him and spread the word about Him.  

The gift of faith is so important when it comes to healing.  The woman with the issue of blood in Luke 8 touched the hem of Jesus’ garment because she believed that if she touched the fringe of His garment that she would be healed, “And He said to her, Daughter, your faith has made you well!  Go in peace.” Luke 8:48

This happened as Jesus was on His way to heal the daughter of Jairus.  After he healed the woman with the issue of blood he went to Jairus’ house and when he got there they said that the girl was already dead and they became fearful so Jesus asked everyone, except the girl’s father and mother, Peter, John and James to leave.  Why did He ask these people to leave?  I think because they were full of fear and they had lost their faith.  Fear cancels faith which is important in receiving your healing.

This also happened in Acts 9:40 when Peter sent all of the people out of the room after a woman had died and he commanded her to get up and she was resurrected from the dead.

This is part I for the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.  We will talk about the rest of the gifts in the next program.  We will also be talking about receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.  So stay tuned.