2020
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February 1st, 2020
”Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17
Why do you think countless number of believers are so powerless in a world which needs what we have in Jesus Christ? Why are churches not making an impact with their messages? It is because we are
not making use of the Holy Spirit which was given to us to help. Maybe we are not ready to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit? Several people I talk to want to do great things for God. Maybe you are one of them. The greatness comes through a relationship with Jesus Christ. Then a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit. As we read in John 14, the disciples were concerned when Jesus said He was leaving, but He assured them that He will not leave them as orphans. John 14:16-19 says, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.” For a Christian, faith is not asking for what we do not have but to make use of what we have. We have the Holy Spirit.The Bible says we are a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” Our sins have been forgiven, we have a new spiritual life, a new relationship with God–all this is available through the HOLY SPIRIT. Jesus said it is an advantage to you when I leave. You will receive the helper. “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:7)The power of the Holy Spirit is for everyone not just for the spiritual giants, pastors or teachers. The spirit is given to all who recognize the need and seek God’s help. This is true to all. Paul says in Romans 8:11, “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.” The Holy Spirit is found in every believer, and the measure in which we walk in the spirit’s fullness and power is the measure in which our lives will impact the world around us. In Zechariah 4:6 we read, “So he said to me, “This is
the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.”
We often ask what is my spiritual gift. The answer is, the HOLY SPIRIT is the
gift. The spirit is God’s full provision for your life. Our God has given everything we need. Hudson Taylor, missionary said, “I use to ask God to help me. Then I asked if I might help Him. I ended up by asking Him to do His work through me.”
All of us complain about not having any talent or skill to offer God. It may be true but what does it have to do with the Holy Spirit. When HE is present, it does not matter what you can or you cannot do. We need to be thankful. He is because then we become God’s perfect vessel to be used by Him to show His power through your willingness, obedience and availability. His promise is 2 Corinthians 12:9, “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” You are the person God can do His best work, for He will get all the glory. It is our weakness– His tool to work with.
We need to be asking what is the Holy Spirit impressing upon us? And then respond to it. Are you seeking your own to do good things for God or do you allow God? This moment will be an encounter with God, that you have been seeking.
When we allow the spirit to work through us, we will make an impact in
our individual lives, in the church, in the community, in our work place. So God will get the GLORY.
My prayer is we will seek a relationship with Jesus and then the helper the Holy Spirit will make changes in the world around us.
This article was gleamed from one of the books by Henry and Mel Blackaby, What’s So Spiritual About Your Gifts.
Heavenly Father, I realize that I’ve neglected the person of the Holy Spirit in my life.
I repent, asking You to forgive me for relegating Him to a position much less than He deserves.
May I know and experience the gift of the Holy Spirit in all His fullness.
I open my life for Him to teach me, lead me, and work through me.
Amen
God Bless, Pastor Shaker
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January 1st, 2020
“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” -Galatians 2:19-20
This is from a devotional. I want to share as we begin the new year to renew our lives and consecrate to Jesus that we belong to Him. We all struggle but here is a testimony to encourage us. Frances Ridley Havergal received Christ at a young age but struggled for years with Christian victory. “I had hoped that a kind of tableland had been reached in my journey, where I might walk awhile in the light, without the weary succession of rock and hollow, crag and morass, stumbling and striving; but I seem born back into all the old difficulties of the way, with many sin- made aggravations. I think the great root of my trouble and alienation is that I do not make an unreserved surrender of myself to God; until this is done I shall know no peace. I am sure of it.”
She struggled throughout her twenties and thirties, pulled in one direction by the acclaim of great London crowds who loved her singing and in another direction by the Holy Spirit. Then one day, at age thirty-six, she read a booklet entitled “All For Jesus,” which stressed the importance of making Christ King of every corner and cubicle of one’s life. Frances made a fresh, complete consecration of God. Years later her sister asked her about it, and she replied: “Yes, it was on Advent Sunday, December 2, 1873,
I first saw clearly the blessedness of true consecration. I saw it as a flash of electric light. There must be full surrender before there can be full blessedness. God admits you by the one into the other. He showed me this most clearly.”
Shortly after, Frances found herself spending several days with ten people, some of them unconverted and others
of them Christians not fully surrendered. “Lord,” she prayed, “give me all in this house.” Before she left, all ten were yielded Christians. On the last night of her visit, Frances, too excited to sleep, wrote her “Consecration Hymn,” the song that became here life’s theme. She took its words seriously and prayed earnestly over them every December 2 making changes to her life and lifestyle as needed. the first verse says:
“Take my life and let it be, Consecrated, Lord, to Thee; Take my hands and let them move At the impulse of Thy love.”
I hope you have a blessed New Year and believe God will do marvelous miracles with our consecrated lives.
In Christ’s steps, Pastor Shaker
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