daddy4ms

Introduction: Happy New Year! 2020 was not what any of us expected, but even in the craziness we can still be thankful for God who remained faithful and in control through all of it.  God truly is For Us, With Us and Loves Us. So, you might have expected a New Year’s message today.  I am not one who makes resolutions for a few reasons.  The first is very few get followed through (i.e. busy gym in January, a new diet that lasts until Valentine’s Day, etc.) The second is the focus on ME rather than Him.  So, I debated about what to share today and decided to return back to 1 Corinthians because I believe in 2021 rather than resolutions the church needs power and gifts.  What if in 2021 Hesston MB experienced the manifestation gifts in operation? It is what I am praying for.  I believe God wants to answer that prayer and He needs you and me to humble ourselves and allow the Holy Spirit to empower us so that we can make much of Jesus for the glory of the Father...

Review : Why have we been uninformed? Varieties of gifts, service, activities but same Spirit, Lord, and God who EMPOWERS them all in EVERYONE. Manifestation gifts are for common good.  Manifestation gifts come out in specific moments as determined by the Spirit. Introduction ·          Dictionary definition-“Manifest”-demonstrate plainly, reveal, evidence of or proof ·          Manifestation gifts seem to complement other gifts a person may have.   For example, manifestation gifts often work alongside our grace gifts.   So, words of knowledge often work with gift of prophecy, wisdom often with gift of teaching, healing with gift of mercy. ·          Personally, these manifestation gifts often lead me to pray specifically for people and situations.   I then must pray and ask God if I am to share with the person.   Sometimes it is only f...

I have almost finished reading Jesus Continued by J.D. Greear. As I have said before, it has become my new favorite book on the Holy Spirit.  He continues in Chapters 8-10 discussing how the Holy Spirit uses the Word, spiritual gifts and the church. Below are some quotes from those chapters: The most reliable guide to the will of God is the Word of God. In other words, don't lean on your abilities to figure out the will of God. Lean on his willingness to guide you. If you have the Spirit of God, you are "anointed." We don't work for him as much as he works through us. God gives each of us a major-league role in his kingdom. So God allows various members of his body to see and experience different dimensions of his beauty, and as we share these things with others in the body, we all end up with a fuller picture of Jesus than any of us could have obtained alone. Guilt-driven motivation produces frustration and burnout. Being gift-driven produces empowermen...

As I mentioned in a previous post, we are focusing our family worship for the next few months on missionaries. As we think about the missionaries we personally support as well as our church, we talk about characteristics that they exhibit that we should have as well. We have already talked about making sacrifices and being content. During these times, we have made birthday cards for one missionary and Thanksgiving cards for another. This week, we are talking about telling others about Jesus and spiritual gifts. As we talked about how missionaries share Jesus in other cultures, we talked about how we need to do it in Hesston . Each of three kids looked up one of these verses: Matthew 28:18-20, Romans 10:13-15, and Ephesians 6:19-20. The kids participated in their usual ways as they played the piano, sang songs, and prayed together. We sang one of the kids' new favorite songs "Go" by Seeds Family Worship. When we talk about spiritual gifts, we are going to look at 1 ...