Todays Devotional: ANOTHER THEOLOGICAL MESS. Good morning! What a splendid day to give thanks to God for all of His wonderful benefits; but more so, to thank Him for who He is as our loving Father. God is gracious to fill our lives with every good gift, that we may be fully furnished for life and a ministry of reconciliation. Its not that we deserve it, forget that, its because He loves us unconditionally. Its true that in us alone there is no good thing, therefore, we have need of His gifting. Our Father knows exactly what we have need of, so we should pay attention to Him. This however, is an impossible task without His divine Helper. So, who is this Helper that I am referring to? The Holy Spirit! He is called our Helper and Comforter for a reason. And the first thing that comes to mind then is this, we need a Helper for understanding Gods Word, and because life will throw some extremely harsh things at us, it will require that we have a real Comforter. Therefore, God our Father has supplied this Helper and Comforter to assist us in this life. Now unfortunately, there is a great argument to His evidence within the church. For there are those who preside around the whole idea that He is only within a person if they speak in tongues; whereas, the other side explains the tongues thing away because they obviously dont speak in tongues; and because of this, there has been all kinds of interpretations doctrinally to what is the correct evidence to His presence. Please note, there is no confusion in this matter as far as God is concerned. The Holy Spirit is given respectively to ANY who should ask for Him of the Father if they are born again. This is a promise, and God never withholds what He promises. The confusion is over the manifestations, to which clearly shows our ineptness to know Gods Word. First off, Paul tells us that not all speak in tongues (1 Corinthians 12:30). Just as not all are apostles, prophets, teachers, etc. these are gifts and not all of us have the same gifts, therefore speaking in tongues is not the evidence of the infilling of the Holy Spirit. But rather, its the power to live as a new creation as sons of righteousness born of His Spirit. This cant be evidenced with intellect alone regarding the study of Gods Word, that will only produce a pious person steeped in religion. Nor can it be achieved just because you speak in tongues, for many do, but remain completely ignorant of sound teachings from Gods Word. Ive witnessed both sides hold to a superior position on this, all of this depending on their experience or lack thereof, and both are very wrong when they resort to this. The Holy Spirit is given to ALL that would ask for Him of the Father. He is a promise, not solely based on a certain gift. His manifestations are, as He wills in a person, not what we select and group ourselves around. Therefore, if I speak in tongues and you dont, Im not with greater power than you, Im only equipped with a specific gift that He has given to supply the rest of the body of Christ for His purposes. You on the other hand, may be gifted to teach wonderfully with a great anointing, whereas I may be less gifted though you dont speak in tongues and I do. Conventional thinking would believe if speaking in tongues were evidence of His presence and power, then I ought to be a much more thorough and gifted teacher than someone who doesnt speak in tongues, but that is not the truth. Let us understand that the gift of the Holy Spirit is not a language, but a promise to any who should ask for Him of the Father. So, by all means ask for Him, and when you do, know that you have received Him without letting someone elses idea confuse you to this fact. Lets quit confusing the family, and enjoy the dispersing of how God wants to manifest through our lives for the good of the whole family. And if you are contributing to this, please quit trying to force others to fit your personal experiences as to Gods power and presence, it just may be that you might deeply discourage that person indefinitely because it is not in the design of God to use them specifically as He chooses to use you. ~Dad~ If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13 NKJV)
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 13:51:32 +0000
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