The God Of Possibilities: “Baptisms - Earth: Water, Wind and Fire” - Part 2c

Recap of 4/18/2011:
Once again, I stand amazed as God takes us where He wants us to grow. I am truly humbled to be serving you all and to have the opportunity to grow with you during this time. Blessings upon each of you and your family!!

When conversations about “spiritual” gifts take place, it can conjure up a wide variety of thoughts, definitions, concerns, and fears. The gifts of the Spirit are simply God enabling believers to do what He has called us to do. There is no need for fear, when the source of the gift is from the Holy Spirit and is motivated by love. The Holy Spirit distributes the gifts as He sees fit (1 Corinthians 12:7-11). God calls us to be obedient servants to whatever is given to us as an opportunity. When He calls, He equips. So, whatever task or tasks He calls us to, He has obligated Himself to provide us “everything we need” to accomplish those tasks (2 Peter 1:3). For example, God may call one to be a teacher and gives that person the gift of teaching, but that does not excuse the person from serving God in other ways as well. We shouldn’t focus so much on one (or a few) spiritual gift(s) that we miss other opportunities to serve God and people. Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering (Romans 12:1 MSG).

Paul teaches the gifts of the Spirit are useful and beneficial, but not necessarily equal in their use or benefit. There is a use for the gift of prophecy, but may not be the most beneficial in the hospital when visiting the sick. The gift’s benefit is determined by its worth at the time. To help describe this, Paul uses the analogy of the human body (1 Corinthians 12:12-26). Members of the body have differing functions, Paul says, but the different parts are arranged and function together. The service of each Christian should be in proportion to the gifts that he or she possesses (1 Corinthians 12-14). All believers, as members of the body of Christ, must be serving together in order for the body to be fully functional. We need pastors, teachers, helpers, servants, administrators, those with great faith, etc. All of the gifts of the Holy Spirit working together are needed to produce the full potential of the church. Since the gifts of the Spirit are gifts of grace, their use must be motivated by love – the highest goal of all the Fruit of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 13). The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church.

Purposes of spiritual gifts are:

• Equipping believers to share the Good News – Matthew 10:19-20; Luke 4:18; 1 Corinthians 2:13
• God confirmed the message of the Good News – Hebrews 2:3-4
• Strengthening the church to serve – 1 Corinthians 12:7; 14:26

Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church (1 Corinthians 14:12 NIV). It should always be remembered that one purpose of all the gifts is to strengthen and build up the church.

Listing of spiritual gifts (Part 1 for this week):
There are many gifts listed in scripture. The list below may represent a majority, but, is by no means, an exclusive list.

1 Corinthians 12:8-11:

• message of wisdom – the ability to make decisions and give guidance that is according to God's will. It is the wisdom of God – the supernatural impartation of facts; it is not natural.
• message of knowledge – the ability to have an in-depth understanding of a spiritual issue or situation. It is supernatural insight or understanding of circumstances, situations, problems, or a body of facts by revelation; that is, without assistance by any human resource but solely by divine aid.
• faith – A supernatural ability to meet adverse circumstances with trust in God's words and messages and encourage others to trust God, no matter the circumstances.
• gifts of healing – the miraculous ability to use God's healing power to restore a person who is sick, injured, or suffering.
• miraculous powers – the performance of something which is against the laws of nature; it is a supernatural power to intervene and counteract earthly and evil forces. However, the greatest miracle (and often least talked about) is the miracle of salvation … taking spiritually dead people and transforming them into something new (a new creation) and giving them a fresh start in Jesus.
• prophecy – being able to proclaim a message from God which strengthens others, encourages them, and comforts them. It is divinely inspired (not of intellect) and a supernatural proclamation in a known language.
• distinguishing between spirits (God, man, demonic) – the ability to determine whether or not a message, person, or event is truly from God. It is the supernatural power to detect the realm of the spirits and their activities.
• speaking in different kinds of tongues (languages) – supernaturally enabled speaking in languages not known to the speaker. These languages may be a current world language, some past culture, or “unknown” in the sense that they are a means of communication inspired by the Holy Spirit (Mark 16:17; Acts 2:4, 10:44-48, 19:1-7; 1 Corinthians 12:10, 13:1-3, 14:2-22, 26-32).
• interpretation of tongues (languages) – the ability to interpret the tongues being spoken and communicate it back to others in your own language. Supernaturally speaking an interpretation to reveal the meaning of a different tongue. This gift comes from the mind of the Spirit rather than out of the mind of man.

For 4/25/2011:
Brief: We covered a lot of ground last week … needless to say, there will be much more ground to cover this week. But, in addition to covering more gifts, we'll also compare a couple of giftings. We'll do a side-by-side comparison of tongues "the sign" and "the gift" and also a comparison of prophecy "the gift" and prophetic "the function/office". This comparison is not to say that one is better than the other, but, rather, to show when, where, how, and why they are different. ALL of the giftings of the Holy Spirit are good and necessary. Let's not fear them … let's embrace them for the purpose God has for His church!!!!

Homework
As part of our response to this learning, consider the gifts we've covered thus far (above listing) and spend time with the Lord asking which of them are areas He wants to begin moving you into. If we have time, we'll spend some of it talking about this … don't worry, we have a few weeks to cover this part of the homework. So, we'll give it the time and space needed - as He leads.

“God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. The Man came alive—a living soul!”
-- Genesis 2:7 (MSG) --

The God Of Possibilities: “Baptisms - Earth: Water, Wind and Fire” - Part 2b

Recap of 4/11/2011:
WOW! Talk about "whirlwind" … we barely got through the topic of baptism in the Holy Spirit. Once again, I underestimated what God wants to do with this topic and our group. Have Your way done, Lord! We will continue by looking more deeply into the gifts of the Holy Spirit (see more below). As we discussed this, we realized that there are at least two primary reasons that God wants us to walk in the baptism of the Holy Spirit: to have power and to be His witness (Acts 1:8). I believe it's critically important that we understand that God's desire is for us to be successful in being the kind of witness He needs on this earth and that He has promised to give us all that we need to be that witness. So, "we receive" the power and "we are" the witness!


For 4/18/2011:
Brief: There are many giftings that come with receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This week we'll plunge into those gifts to better understand what power God is willing to give us to be His witness. The question is: Am I willing to be a power-filled witness for God in this life? Here is the informational sheet we've covered before in brief. Feel free to download and print out for use in our next session.

Homework
As part of our coverage, we provided a number of scriptures in Acts to review during the week. Remember to look at these in context by reading the surrounding scriptures to the references:

1. Acts 4:8
2. Acts 6:5,10
3. Acts 8:14-18
4. Acts 13:52
5. Acts 19:1-7 

“God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. The Man came alive—a living soul!”
-- Genesis 2:7 (MSG) --

The God Of Possibilities: “Baptisms - Earth: Water, Wind and Fire” - Part 2a

Recap of 4/4/2011:
Dipping into the start of our journey in "baptisms", we covered the aspect of "John's Baptism", which, is a baptism of repentence and how it occurs prior to the cross of Jesus Christ. John came prior to Jesus and, in part, prepared the way in people's lives for The Way. Jesus came to "fulfill all righteousness" and to serve and give His life as a ransom for many. The "fulfill all righteousness" that Jesus accomplishes (with the aid of John) is the full acceptance of being the servant of God and obeying every word that comes from the mouth of God. We continued to splash about in the topic pool of the "Believer's baptism", which, is a baptism taking place after the cross of Jesus and is for those who acknowledge their need of a saviour and dedication of obeying God even as Jesus did. This "believer's" baptism is essentially an outward act signifying our inward change via repentance and agreement to follow God. We then lightly touched upon the aspect of being baptized in the Name: the Lord Jesus Christ. Though this is teaching that is controversial, it is something to be considered in light of scripture.


For 4/11/2011:
Brief: My naiveté would have us completed by now with the topic of baptisms - not so much! So, this week we'll begin our dive into the baptism of the Holy Spirit. As our topic title suggests, "wind" is an appropriate term in helping to describe the dynamics of the Holy Spirit. The Greek word, "pneuma" (breath) begins to help us understand this a little better - think of "pneumatic tools" or air tools which are usually driven by compressed air. Another, perhaps more appropriate, analogy is the wind which sailboats use to generate a force to power them. I like this one best because the boat is at the complete mercy and dependence upon the wind to move. This is how it ought to be for the Christian - totally dependent upon the Holy Spirit - "For in him we live and move and have our being". I don't expect we'll get through both baptisms of "Spirit" and "fire" this week, but, we'll give it a go! Repeated here are the starter scriptures to use in your preparation for our meeting.

Homework
Note what scripture says about the baptisms and be prepared to discuss them in our group time. For each of the following scriptures, find others in the Bible which complement or expand on the topic.

1. Acts 19:4 (AMP)
2. Matthew 28:19-20 (NLT)
3. John 3:5-7 (NLT)
4. Acts 19:1-7 (NIV)
5. Luke 24:47-53 (NIV)
6. Acts 10:43-49 (NLT)
7. Romans 8:29 (MSG)
8. 1 Corinthians 3:9-15 (NLT)
    

“God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. The Man came alive—a living soul!”
-- Genesis 2:7 (MSG) --

The God Of Possibilities: “Baptisms - Earth: Water, Wind and Fire” - Part 1

Recap of 3/28/2011:
We took a shot at covering the topics of the "power", the "sign", the "gift" and surrounding elements. Though we did not have an atomic explosion, I think we covered some good ground. Hopefully, as we radiate into the next few weeks, we'll see how much devastation we can do to the enemy's attempt to influence our thinking and understanding!!


For 4/4/2011:
Brief: As it was in the beginning, so God continues His creative power. He desires to have "the good" restored in His creation. We'll be looking at the dynamics of earth (humankind), water (Word of God), wind (Holy Spirit), and fire (purifying) as we look at the baptisms in the Word of God. Below you will find some starter scriptures to use in your preparation for our meeting.

Homework
Note what scripture says about the baptisms and be prepared to discuss them in our group time. For each of the following scriptures, find others in the Bible which complement or expand on the topic.

1. Acts 19:4 (AMP)
2. Matthew 28:19-20 (NLT)
3. John 3:5-7 (NLT)
4. Acts 19:1-7 (NIV)
5. Luke 24:47-53 (NIV)
6. Acts 10:43-49 (NLT)
7. Romans 8:29 (MSG)
8. 1 Corinthians 3:9-15 (NLT)
    

“God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. The Man came alive—a living soul!”
-- Genesis 2:7 (MSG) --