Life Happenings: General Life Happenings

Life Happenings: General Life Happenings

Bible Study Week 7

 This week in Bible study we talked about spiritual gifts... There are three primary lists of spiritual gifts in the New Testament. 

1) 1st Corinthians 12:7-11; there are 9 examples in this passage. They include wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miraculous powers, prophesy, distinguishing between spirits, speaking in tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. 

2) Romans 12:6-8; there are 7 examples in this passage. They include prophesy, serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, leading, and mercy. 

3) 1st Peter 4:10-11; there are 2 examples (more like categories) in this passage. They are speaking and serving. 

Something interesting she noted when we looked at these three passages was the fact that in reference to all three lists, within a few verses of either the beginning or end of them there is an exhortation of LOVE. Without love we will never be able to truly use our spiritual gifts for the good of the Body of Christ! 

Some notes she made about our spiritual gifts are that they are not the same as our talents, we may be talented at certain things, but those are not necessarily our spiritual gifts, you may be a wonderful singer, but that is not your gift, its your talent, which you can also use to glorify Christ. Also, your gifts will energize you, not exhaust you... even if you feel exhausted after a day of using one of your spiritual gifts you also feel energized and exhilarated. They build you up, don't tear you down! 

At the end of the lesson she presented Romans 12:6-8 to us out of The Message, and it was interesting to see how the gifts and their use was described, so I'm going to put it here. 

"let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't. If you preach, just preach God's message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if your put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face." 

-Romans 12:6-8 MSG

For those who preach or speak, it is easy sometimes to go off on your own thing and not stick to God's word. One way she said to know if you have the gift of help is if you often want to help people who often don't want help. If you learn something and cant keep it to yourself, you just want to share it, you may have the gift of teaching. Those who have the gift of encouragement need to be careful not to use that gift in such a way that it discourages people, don't use it to tell people where they have fallen short. You may have the gift of leadership if you have a tendency to take over and people are glad that you did, but people with leading gifts can lead many many people astray if they are not intimate with God.

So those are just some things to think about in terms of spiritual gifts. 

God Bless!

Life Happenings: General Life Happenings

Life Happenings: General Life Happenings

Bible Study Week 6

 In the sixth week of the Beth Moore study "The Inheritance" she hit on some awesome points that I want to share here. This week she focused very much on the 'boundary lines' of our lives, since she has been talking about inheritance and where the 'boundary lines' fall for our inheritance just as the boundaries fell for the Israelite's in the promise land. She was helping us to define where the boundaries fall for our lives and here are the guides she gave us. 

1) The thing that gives our 'property' height is our Intimacy with God. Only through this can we truly inherit the Kingdom of God. If we have great Intimacy with God we will unlimited height to our property and the boundary there will be limitless! 

2)One of the most important boundaries is Our Pasts. We often don't want to claim what has happened in our pasts as ours, we would rather forget it, but by claiming it for the Glory of God we are making it our property and it falls within our boundaries. When she was talking about Pasts, she was specifically talking about the painful things and failures of our pasts. The areas of our lives we would rather not possess, but the huge point she made here is that if we don't possess those things ourselves, it leaves it open for the Enemy to take possession of those parts of our property and use them against us. God puts those difficult things in our lives so that we can use them for his Glory later. I think this was the best concept of the night, because its so true, we don't want to keep those hard things in our lives and claim them but if we don't and we don't try to use them for God's glory, the Enemy will possess it, he will stand on that property and use it against you until you decide to take possession of it and kick him off! If there is an area of your life where you feel defeated in life, the enemy is standing there on that part of your property and you need to take it back! 

3) The third boundary to our property is our Life Experiences, and this includes EVERYTHING! This is everything in everyday life that God has entrusted to you. This includes where you went to school, where you work, your family, basically anywhere that you have done life and what you have done with it is part of your property, it is part of you! This area/boundary gives us depth, this is where we get everything that is who we are and what we are. 

4) The fourth boundary line is our Spiritual Gifts... this she covers more in the following week, but the big questions she asked in reference to them this week were, Are we striving to find out what they are? and Are we living them out? God gives us spiritual gifts so that we can use him to his Glory and to bring Fame to his name!

Our pasts, our life experiences, and our spiritual gifts are all given to us by God as our property, where the boundary lines have fallen for us and we can either claim that property and use it for the greatness of God's kingdom or we can not. What we do with the things God entrusts to us here on Earth will affect what he will entrust to us in his Kingdom. Just as in the Parable of the Talents, if you are given a little and do great things with it and multiply it you will be given even more, if you are given a little and do nothing with it, you will have squandered the opportunity God gave you! Be faithful with what God gives you and claim every last inch of your property!

God Bless!