Spiritual Warfare: My Journey With The Holy Spirit – Renewed and Transformed
Other gifts listed in the Bible are gifts of leading the church, mercy, wisdom, healing, and doing miracles. There are probably many more gifts listed in the Bible, but the Spirit has this wide variety of gifts that He gives to His church because there are a wide variety of needs in the church. To meet the needs of the body, He gifts all the members of the body so that all of us can be involved in the lives of the body of Christ, using our gifts for the service of the church. Paul explicitly says in 1 Corinthians One way in which the Holy Spirit empowers us is to give us a wide variety of gifts to meet the wide variety of needs in the church.
Under the general category of empowerment, we also ask about purpose: Do we want to know what the will of God is? The main passage on fruits is in Galatians 5. Then he sets up a contrast between the desires of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. In Hebrews, the author talks about a person outraging the Holy Spirit; this happens when we hear the Spirit but we do not listen; this happens when we are prompted to obey and yet we disobey. The Holy Spirit starts to withdraw the blessings of God in our lives, and He will start to exert corrective discipline. The Holy Spirit became angry with them and so some were made to be sick and some were simply taken home. How much better it is to hear and listen to the Holy Spirit! How much better it is to be prompted and to obey the Holy Spirit!
Finally, we are at a very practical level: What does it look like to be empowered? This is a very difficult question. Paul tells the Philippians that God is at work in us, giving us desires; we understand that, but then He gives us the power to accomplish those desires. What does it look like to have this balance? How did that happen? I cannot do anything in a sermon to change our hearts. Do you know what? I know that--there is nothing I can do.
My Shopping Bag
So the process is to turn you and me over to the working of the Holy Spirit. I will never stand before you and try to deliver some sort of spiritual stream of consciousness because I was too lazy to study the preceding week. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. So by Your guidance and strength, I will present my whole body, everything that I am, to You as a living sacrifice.
However, I was realizing that my erroneous view that the miracle gifts have ceased put a limit on how God could work and move through me. As a mother, I started to pray for my children to be healed every time they got sick. As a daughter, I prayed for my mom to be healed when her back pain was severe. As a sister, I prayed for my brother to be healed from a disability that affected his entire life from the time he was born.
That is how the Lord led me to be on a prayer team at Bridgeway. I was convicted of not following through with the Great Commision Jesus had given us prior to ascending to heaven Mark He would bring up James 5: During praying with two prayer team members, not only did the Lord strengthen me, but He also confirmed that I was on the right track. I was also invited to be on the prayer team. Things were happening with a fast pace from then on. I witnessed one miraculous healing and one deliverance from evil spirits while praying with a dear sister in Christ at Bridgeway.
I was also convinced and had faith that God was going to miraculously heal my brother. I repeatedly prayed for his healing. There was no doubt. I knew God was going to heal him one day. My mom even had a conversation with me one day. She shared with me her own experiences when God miraculously healed her heart condition many years ago.
The Holy Spirit: Our Gentle Teacher
I kept praying for my brother and I prayed for other people. The pressure from my parents to rethink my position, coupled with the absence of healings in those I prayed for, created an opening for doubt. We also moved away from the city to an isolated place in the mountains. It became difficult for us to make the hour drive to our home church. I felt isolated and deserted. I began to question His goodness. Why would He move us away from everyone in the first place? There is a song that describes exactly what I was going through at that time.
I was realizing just how unequipped I was to fight in the full-blown battle that was waged against me. He wanted to stop me. But complete surrender meant full surrender to His will, and I knew He wanted us to move in the first place. Six months later, we moved back to the city much closer to our dear home church. I began having a burden and the urgency to be involved with the prayer team again. So I started to pray about it.
Please, give it to me! Do not question others' faith just because you disagree with them. It adds nothing to the discussion and only causes strife. Do not question why someone comes to this website just because they disagree with you or the content of the article.
- Perspectives on Intellectual Capital: Multidisciplinary Insights Into Management, Measurement, and Reporting.
- Greatest Works of the Brontë Sisters: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey, The Professor, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Shirley & Villette;
- What is Kobo Super Points?.
- Editor's Picks!
- Lena River Man!
- The Holy Spirit: Our Gentle Teacher?
- Steve Biko (Ohio Short Histories of Africa)?
Do not post personal information including phone numbers, email or mailing addresses, or credit card information belonging to you or others. Do not include copyrighted content or other intellectual property that you do not own or have the explicit rights or lisenses to distribute. Do not post, directly or through links, viruses, misleading, malicious or off-topic content.
Do not use our comments section to advertise your website s. This includes fequently linking to your site at the end your comments.
- Artists Dream?
- Recently On Women;
- Browse By Tag.
- October 2018.
We reserve the right to deny commenting privileges of anyone for any period of time for any reason. Please consider the following statements pertaining to comments posted by you and other visitors to our website: Comments are not pre-screened before they post. Charisma Media reserves the right to modify or remove any comment that does not comply with the above guidelines and to deny access of your Disqus account to make additional comments to the website without any notice.
If you have been denied access to comment due to a violation of these terms please do not create multiple accounts in an attempt to circumvent the system.