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| Bulletin: December Bulletin
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FAMILY NIGHT & WATCH NIGHT SERVICE –
Let us get together on New Year's eve to share with one another what the Lord has done for us and the church.
Each care group is to present at least one item.
Individual items are also welcome.
Members are to bring food for a pot-bless dinner.
At
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The Marks of the Spirit
How can I know the Spirit of God is at work?
P
erhaps you have noticed that the Bible lists several different sins against the Holy Spirit: grieving, quenching, resisting and blaspheming, just to name a few. But I'd like to draw our attention to one sin against the Holy Spirit that isn't specifically mentioned in Scripture: blaming the Spirit.
I once saw a chart of Christian phrases and their simple English equivalents. In the chart, “I feel led” translated to, “I want to.” There is a great deal that the Holy Spirit gets “credit”
for, that is nothing other than our doing what we feel like doing. Sometimes we convince ourselves that the Spirit mystically transforms our emotions into divine guidance. But “
the heart is deceitful above all else, and desperately wicked”
(Jer.17:9). Surely emotions – even those of believers – are no safe guide.
How, then, are we to recognize the work and prompting of the Spirit of God? Thankfully, the Lord left us with a way to tell. According to the Bible, any genuine working of the Holy Spirit will be marked by the following:
The fruit of the Spirit of God.
Galatians 5: 19-22 gives us two checklists that helps us to identify whether the Spirit or the flesh is working. According to this passage, envy and bad temper are clearly works of the flesh as immorality and idolatry. Carnal behaviour – even when seemingly for a good cause – is evidence that it is not the Spirit who is in control. Instead, the Holy Spirit longs to reproduce the character of Christ in each believer. When He is truly at work, believers will radiate Christ.
The edification of the
Harmony with the Word of God.
Starting at Ephesians 5:18 and continuing into chapter 6, Paul lists the characteristics and results of being filled with the Spirit. (Barking is noticeably absent.) The parallel passage in Colossians 3 and 4 lists the same element. But in Colossians, they are a result of
letting the Word of Christ dwell in us richly (Col.3:16). Other passages equate the working of God's Spirit with the working of His Word. For instance, Christians are born again by the Spirit (Jn.3:7f) and by the Word (1 Pet.1:23). Any action or teaching at odds with the Word of God is not of the Spirit.
Glorification of the Son of God
. Above all, the Spirit's work and joy is to reveal Christ.
“When the helper comes,.. He will bear witness of me”
(jn.15:26).
“He shall glorify Me” (Jn.16:14). How do we know the Spirit of God is active? The same way we test every spirit: is Christ being exalted?
“By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God”
(1 Jn.4:2). Any believer, church or work that is empowered by the Holy Spirit will be one in which the Lord Jesus has the obvious pre-eminence.
By James Martin Uplook September/October, 2009
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