Workings of the Holy
Spirit
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| courtesy: Dean Williams 2012 |
Churches that manifest spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 12:8-10),
appear to manifest fear as well:
- A Christian woman attends a large church that manifests the gifts of the Spirit. However, she visited our smaller church for help. When we listened to her, we noticed that her confession was always about “satan this” or the “devil that”. She had a lot of fear.
- On a different day, I passed by a group of boys from a nearby Christian middle school. They were talking about pvp (player vs. player) games. The subject of choosing computer names came up. One boy—probably not more than 13 years old—told the group: “Yeah, if you wanna scare Christians, just make 666 or demon part of your name!” They laughed.
Our churches are infected with fear. Yet, isn’t it odd that
mature church members are clueless to what adolescent school boys are alert to?
So get a clue. If you’re hitting bumps in the road, do you
often confess that the devil is hindering you? Why give him so much power over
your life? All a humble Christian has to do is “resist” him and he’ll run
(James 4:7)!
Or, if you’ve been too busy chasing after spiritual gifts
that you haven’t made time to bring forth spiritual fruit (Gal. 5:22-23), then
fear will be your new best friend.
So get another clue. Spiritual fruit—especially love—assure
us of our continued connection to Christ Jesus (John 15:2-17). That connection
helps us confess that Jesus within us is greater “than he that is in the world”
(1 John 4:4).
All relationships take work. So, if you’ve managed to lose
your connection to the Vine, what else can your confession contain but “he that
is in the world”?
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Scriptures are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version, Cambridge 1769. Used by permission. All
rights reserved.
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