Death is coming

The closer death creeps up upon me the less I am able to understand the reasons for life or living.

Yes I have experienced a close family member dying and unlike television it takes decades to handle such a thing. To think I am going to put my family through such a thing when I finally leave is more horrific to me than the thought of death itself.

My life was and is still a learning experience but when all said and done what am I to do with all this accumulated learning over my lifetime if I just die. There is no logic or reason to this.

Long ago I became aware that the God story that is sold to the majority is just a nice story to give mankind with a message of a basic layout of how nice life could be if everyone followed these ideas. Not many in life do and if one thinks about it the good and evil structures actually depend on each other. The good that can be experienced in life is only understood as good when there is it's opposite to compare it to. This is not rocket science only common sense in reality. I am not saying we need to experience bad but understanding in it is needed to appreciate the great things many of us can have in our lives. From birth to death there are many ways mankind helps his fellow man. How many ways can you help?


Monday, March 8, 2010

Misconceptions about Prophetic Giftings

By John Wong

Prophetic ministries are largely misunderstood among the churches of Christ today. We can see the Lord moving mightily in some places and that He is pouring out genuine prophetic anointing on His people. Many powerful prophetic ministries are born and ministers being raised up. In response to that, some attend every conference they can attend hoping for a share of anointing for themselves. Others totally reject the phenomenon due to wrong concepts and confusions.

Some believe that since God is so holy and wise, He would never anoint a person who has problem in his personal life or character or doctrine. Some even go into the extreme and fall in the sin of worshipping man instead of God. In fact, God uses weak and broken people all the time to show His glory, like Samson of the book of the judges. He is a mighty warrior who is filled with the Holy Spirit with serious problem spiritually and in personal behavior and character.

When people falsely believe that only perfect man are used by God with demonstration of power and authority, they either think too high of the man being used or totally reject all the prophetic ministers. The moment they see a flaw in the minister's character or doctrine, they immediately conclude that the power did not come from God because God would never use a person like that. This is obviously not biblical because we see a lot of examples in the Bible when God uses weak men who are far from perfect. In the New Testament, we see the most anointed church of that time, the Corinthians, was also the most carnal church of that time according to Apostle Paul.

Spiritual gifts are given by the Holy Spirit freely according to His own will. No one can earn spiritual gifts with work or godliness. The gifts or any other demonstration of power on a person are not given as a badge or a sign that God approves the man's spiritual maturity. No one can earn the gifts of the Holy Spirit by trying to consecrate himself. Everything is given by grace as free gift, just like salvation.

No one could speak perfect word of God because we are all sinners and we could only prophecy in part. Therefore, we must test every prophecy. A well established prophet could tell something not from God, while a broken man with obvious problem could also possibly speak a prophecy from God. But still, we must be aware of false prophets who take people astray.

The Lord can also choose to anoint you with spiritual gift. If that happens, praise Jesus' good name and stay humble, because He alone is worthy of all praise. We are sinners and none of us is perfect. But the Lord can still use us mightily if we obey.

God gives spiritual gifts to a person for the common benefit of the church rather than for individual pleasure. When the Holy Spirit is so kind and merciful that He anoints us with spiritual gift, let us also be the gifts and blessing given to others.

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