.... that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of glory,
may give to you
the Spirit of wisdom
and revelation
in the knowledge of
Him,
the eyes of your
understanding
been enlightened;
that you may know
what is the hope of
His calling,
what are the riches
of the glory
of His inheritance in
the saints,
Ephesians 1: 17 -- 18
While we
are discussing the gifts of the Spirit and whether or not they are being used
properly or not we first must remember that it is not the gifts that we need to
seek for God will give to us what ever He wishes to give. Our first remembrance is this: to remember
why you are saved and saved for, that the Son of God might be manifested in your
flesh. That manifestation of your
salvation is for you to bend your whole energy, all of your powers, to realize
your election as a child of God; enabling you to rise to the occasion
every time. It is true according to
Scripture that you cannot do anything for your salvation. While this is true, you must do something to
manifest it, you must work out what God has worked in you. Does this mean it needs to be some of the
antics and geriatrics that are so often exercise and performed in those
churches that believe that this is a demonstration and manifestation of the
Holy Spirit? No, we are to work out the
salvation and manifestation by the using of our words, that is the use of our
tongue when speaking to others, and we are to use our brains and our nerves. If we are not manifesting God in this manner
and our salvation in this manner, then maybe it is all a lie to say that God
has saved you and sanctify you. This
calling by God for all of His children has not come by any of our works or
anything that we have said or done.
This is simply that which God is done through Jesus Christ when He
raised Him from the dead and then seated Jesus at His right hand in heaven and
by doing so we are in now grafted into his body which is his church: "And He put all things under His feet,
and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the
fullness of Him who fills all in all" (Ephesians 1:22 -- 23). True Christians are nothing like those who
are only cultural or nominal Christian for they have an entirely different
outlook on their faith. So often, those
who are practicing charismatic form of worship to God do so out of some
obligation to a God that they may seem to be punitive. Therefore when they come together as a group
they perform manifestations that are part and parcel of group euphoria and in a
way to show themselves to be somehow blessed by God as though this is God's
design for the church. True authentic
Christians live their lives in obedience but don't live their lives in some
form of obedience to some heartless obligation to a punitive deity. Their lives are filled with joy and the
blessings of this life that God has designed.
They're not looking for some boundary lines that need to be pushed to
the limits or crossed over. True
authentic Christians are looking, seeking, to get as close as possible to Jesus
Christ. True authentic Christians seek
out like-minded friends with whom they can make the journey together. This is a life that is filled with true
happiness a kind of faith that is blessed and acceptable to God. It is not by some works or things that we do
or say, rather it is by our heart truly converted and devoted to our Savior
Jesus Christ. It is this quiet inner
peace that may not even be seen by others that only comes to us by our true
conversion to Jesus Christ. The gifts
of the Spirit were given to the early church to show the power of our Lord and
Savior through the Holy Spirit leading the Christians to spread the
gospel. We must remember that Paul is
speaking to the Corinthian church in regards to these gifts and their
misuse. Take notice of this fact that
Paul wrote in this way to no other church especially those that were only some
50 to 60 miles apart from the Corinthian church. The question is why not, why were they not also yielding to such
misuse of the Spirit: "knowing that
a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ,
even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in
Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law no flesh
shall be justified" (Galatians 2: 16). Paul was addressing to the
Galatians, those churches in the territory of Galatia who were being bombarded
by the Judaizers who were demanding that Christians follow the Jewish law so
that they might find by doing something according to the law, that is, works,
they would be justified. Paul is
addressing this and that principle here is that God does not save as or justify
us by any form of work. I have been in
churches were there are Pentecostal or charismatic exercise is being performed
and many people are babbling away in some sort of gibberish sounds as though
these are a gift of the Spirit called tongues. These churches do not even follow the metric laid out for those who would
be able to speak in a tongue, or a language and have forgotten what Paul wrote
to them which we are going to address even further later: "therefore tongues are not for a sign, not to those who believe
but to unbelievers, but prophesy is not for unbelievers but for those who
believe. Therefore if the whole church
comes together in one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those
who are uninformed or unbelievers, will they not say that you are out of your
mind" (1 Corinthians 4 seen: 22 --
23)? The early church father
Irenaeus wrote: "it behooves us to flee
from them [the Gnostics] as we would flee from Satan. The greater the display with which they are said to perform
miracles, the more carefully should we watch them, as having been in doubt with
a greater spirit of wickedness" (Irenaeus, c.180). We also should be on watch for those things
that are being performed, practiced, or said and to determine if they are not Scriptural:
this is what is being done by these blogs sold out what we say and do are truly
those things that are acceptable by God.
You who dwell in
the gardens,
the companions listen
for your voice-- let me hear it!
Song
of Solomon 8:13
Let us reason
together
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