Should God Be Called ‘She?’ Anglican Women Priests Say God Is ‘Both Male and Female,’ but Church Only Speaks of Him as Male

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Should God Be Called ‘She?’ Anglican Women Priests Say God Is ‘Both Male and Female,’ but Church Only Speaks of Him as Male

Church of England (Photo: Reuters/Phil Noble)

Christian Post Report – Woman clergy take photographs of the first female bishop in the Church of England Libby Lane following her consecration service at York Minster in York, northern England, January 26, 2015.

A group of female priests within the Church of England is calling for more gender-neutral language to be used when referring to God in church services, in what it says is a campaign for equality between men and women in the church.

“Orthodox theology says all human beings are made in the image of God, that God does not have a gender. He encompasses gender — He is both male and female and beyond male and female. So when we only speak of God in the male form, that’s actually giving us a deficient understanding of who God is,” said Rev. Jody Stowell, a member of Women and the Church group, according to The Guardian.

The Rev. Emma Percy, chaplain of Trinity College Oxford and a member of WATCH, added that both male and female language should be used in church services, in order to distance the church from “the notion that God is some kind of old man in the sky.”

Percy argued that there has been a growing support for more modern language to be used during church service.

“In the last two or three years we’ve seen a real resurgence and interest in feminism, and younger people are much more interested in how gender categories shouldn’t be about stereotypes. We need to have a language about God that shows God can be expressed in lots of diverse terms,” she said.

Hilary Cotton, chairman of WATCH, added that the idea has been discussed with a Lambeth Palace committee exploring the experiences of women in the Church.

“We have conversations among that group and we are working toward working with those who are involved in liturgy in the Church of England,” Cotton said, according to The Daily Mail.

“We are at a very, very preliminary stage in terms of shifting the language of worship,” she added. “The question of how might we rewrite the services of the Church of England in a way that broadens our understanding of God is a difficult question over which we will wrestle for a number of years. This has arisen now because of a change in gender culture.”

Ann Widdecombe, a former Conservative member of parliament who left the Anglican Church after it started ordaining female priests, said that the entire suggestion of using female pronouns for God was “plain silly” and “the work of lunatics.”

The Church of England also ordained its first female bishop in January, breaking hundreds of years of tradition. The change was supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, including most others in the CofE leadership.

Stowell, who is a vicar at St Michael & All Angels Church in Harrow, told the BBC, however, that the campaign is not arguing that God is a woman.

“This is not about making God a woman. This is about creating those proper, biblical images of God,” she said.

Stowell argued that the Bible sometimes describes God using female terms.

“We have images of God as a mother bear, so very ferocious, protecting her cubs,” she said.

“We have God as a woman baking and kneading the bread, so this forming God. We have God as a nursing mother.

“We’re not restricted to understanding God with one gender. I would encourage people to explore those kinds of images. They’re wholly biblical. They’re wholly traditional within the Christian faith.”

Source : Christian Post

Bishop of Aleppo Says Beheading of ISIS Militant by Syrian Christian Is a Rumor; ‘Only Revenge We Know Is Forgiveness’

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Bishop of Aleppo Says Beheading of ISIS Militant by Syrian Christian Is a Rumor; ‘Only Revenge We Know Is Forgiveness’

Assyrian Christians (Photo: Reuters/Mohamed Azakir)

Christian Post Report – Assyrians hold banners as they march in solidarity with the Assyrians abducted by Islamic State fighters in Syria earlier this week, in Beirut, Lebanon, February 28, 2015. Militants in northeast Syria are now estimated to have abducted at least 220 Assyrian Christians this week, a group monitoring the war reported. The banner (R) reads, “We are not afraid of whom kills the flesh, we are not afraid of who destroys the stone. Assyrians and victorious.”

Bishop Georges Abou Khazen, the Apostolic Vicar of Aleppo in Syria for the Catholics of the Latin rite, denied reports that a Syrian Christian fighter beheaded an ISIS terrorist for revenge, accusing the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights of spreading rumor based on “unreliable and unverifiable” information.

“The manipulation of information is also one of the means used to multiply the violence and horrors of this conflict,” Bishop Abou Khazen told the Catholic Fides news agency. “We know that more than 230 Assyrian Christians abducted in the villages of Khabur are still held hostage by jihadists.”

The bishop said British media picked up the story despite it being “unreliable and unverifiable.”

The Observatory reported that a Christian fighter from the minority Assyrian community, who was not identified, executed an Islamic State militant Thursday in the village of Tal Shamiram in Syria’s Hasakeh province.

Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, holds large areas of the countryside in the area.

“He took him prisoner and when he found out he was a member of IS, the Assyrian fighter beheaded him in revenge for abuses committed by the group in the region,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse.

The bishop stressed that Christians do not seek revenge. “We Christians do not justify any revenge or violence with religious issues. The only revenge we know is forgiveness, in order to also be a sign of light for all. Vendettas only deepen the wounds, and lengthen the spiral of hatred.”

Abou Khazen added all Christians, “especially in the simplest, who live suffering like lambs among wolves,” are “the first to say that the vicious circle of violence and revenge must be interrupted by someone, and this is the only way not to succumb and open paths to reconciliation.”

ISIS has executed 2,618 people, including 1,511 civilians, since last June, when it declared its “caliphate,” according to the Observatory, which documented at least 464 executions over the last two months alone.

The overall executions included those of 23 children and 32 women. The executions were carried out mostly by beheading, shooting or stoning. ISIS has also executed 139 of its own members for “exceeding the limits in religion and spying for foreign countries,” mostly after they were trying to go back to their homes.

ISIS is an offshoot of al-Qaeda and wants to establish a caliphate in the Levant region and beyond. It has gained control over large swathes of territories in Syria and Iraq.

Islamic State’s main targets are religious minorities, including Christians.

Source : Christian Post

Children ‘Burned Beyond Recognition’ in Latest Round of Barrel Bomb Attacks Killing 200 Syrian Civilians

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Children ‘Burned Beyond Recognition’ in Latest Round of Barrel Bomb Attacks Killing 200 Syrian Civilians

<b>Christian Post Report</b> – Residents gather at a site hit by an airstrike by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar Al Assad in Billion village in the Jabal Al Zawiya region in May 2015.” title=”<b>Christian Post Report</b> – Residents gather at a site hit by an airstrike by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar Al Assad in Billion village in the Jabal Al Zawiya region in May 2015.” name=”jpg” src=”http://images.christianpost.com/full/84048/residents-gather-at-a-site-hit-by-an-airstrike-by-forces-loyal-to-syrias-president-bashar-al-assad-in-billion-village-in-the-jabal-al-zawiya-region-in-may-2015.jpg” class=”imgPhoto” width=”550″ height=”450″ /> <small class=(Photo: Reuters)

Christian Post Report – Residents gather at a site hit by an airstrike by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar Al Assad in Billion village in the Jabal Al Zawiya region in May 2015.

Close to 200 civilians in Syria have died from barrel bomb attacks throughout the weekend allegedly carried out by the army of President Bashar al-Assad, activists have said. While Assad has continuously denied responsibility, a U.N. envoy has condemned the bombings as “totally unacceptable.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday that at least 184 people were killed in several provinces over the weekend, though the actual death toll is believed to be higher. The activist organization said that 71 civilians, including women and children, were killed by bombs dropped by Assad’s helicopters on Saturday in the northern province of Aleppo alone.

“The news of aerial bombing by Syrian helicopters on a civilian area of the Aleppo neighbourhood of Al-Shaar deserves the most strong international condemnation,” U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said in a statement in response to the latest attack.

“The use of barrel bombs must stop,” he said. “All evidence shows that the overwhelming majority of the civilian victims in the Syrian conflict have been caused by the use of such indiscriminate aerial weapons.”

Mistura added that it was “totally unacceptable that the Syrian air force attacks its own territory in an indiscriminate way, killing its own citizens.”

Syria (Photo: Reuters/Abdalrhman Ismail)

Members of the Civil Defence carry an injured man on a stretcher as they walk upon rubble at a site hit by what activists said was a barrel bomb dropped by forces of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, in the old city of Aleppo, May 31, 2015.

BBC News reported that many of the victims “were blown to pieces or burned beyond recognition” by the bombs in Aleppo.

The bombs reportedly consist of steel drums packed with explosives and shrapnel, as well as sometimes chlorine, making them very deadly but also highly inaccurate.

Another humans rights group, Amnesty International, estimated that between January and Mach, at least 3,124 civilians in Aleppo were killed due to barrel bombings alone.

CNN points out it is difficult to confirm the death toll reports in the war-torn country, and said that Assad continues to deny that his government is using barrel bombs.

Civilians in Syria, including the minority Christian population, are caught in the ongoing war between Assad, various rebel groups seeking to remove him from power, and terror group ISIS, which has captured significant territory in the country.

All sides have been accused of carrying out atrocities, with ISIS executing at least 400 people in the city of Palmyra that it captured in May.

Assad’s government has been accused by the SOHR and the U.N. on a number of occasions of using barrel bombs on areas where rebel groups are believed to be hiding out. The bombs have caused widespread destruction, however, with many reports of high civilian death tolls as a result of the strikes.

More than 220,000 people are believed to have been killed in total since the civil war broke out in Mach 2011.

“We are under bombs every day. I think many Christians will flee from Aleppo and seek shelter in the coastal area, but they will do it when schools and universities close, after the exams. In the disaster in which we live, even this year schools and universities remained open in the central districts of Aleppo,” The Chaldean Bishop of Aleppo Antoine Audo said last month.

“Many still believe that studying is important for the future although one lives in a city that seems to have no future.”

SOHR has urged the U.N. Security Council to issue a binding resolution to prohibit the targeting of civilians in Syria, who are massacred every day “under the nose of the international community which do not make any step to stop the ongoing violations committed against the Syrian people who dream of establishing the state of democracy, justice, freedom and equality.”

Source : Christian Post

So Do Not Fear, For I Am With You

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So Do Not Fear, For I Am With You

So Do Not Fear, For I Am With You

Source : Christian Post

Saints and Sinners

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Saints and Sinners

Christian Post Report – “And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you, so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.”
— 1 Thessalonians 3:13

The 12 men that Jesus called were a rough-cut crew. But these are men we call saints today. Over time, we have venerated them. Forever enshrined in stained glass, they are like superheroes from the Bible—no flaws, shortcomings, imperfections; they are the spiritual elite.

  • Greg Laurie
    (Photo: rever Hoehne for Harvest Ministries)
    Greg Laurie, senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California and Harvest Orange County in Irvine, California, shares the Gospel with a sold-out crowd of 19,000 for Harvest America at the American Airlines Center and Victory Park in Dallas, Texas, Oct. 5, 2014.

And how could they not be? These saints spent three concentrated years walking and talking with, and following Jesus. But what exactly is a saint?

A little girl was asked in her Sunday school class what a saint was. Thinking of those stained glass pictures, she said, “They are the people the light shines through.”

Is that not what all of us are called to be? We are to “let our light so shine before men that they may see our good works . . .” So, what is a saint? A saint is a true believer.

That means that if you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ, you are a saint—and so am I! “Saint Greg.” What do you think?

But who exactly were these saints? These apostles that Jesus called? These men who changed the world? The more we get to know these men, the more human we see they are. Sometimes we think of them as one-dimensional characters, perched on pedestals. But any honest look at their stories in the pages of Scripture would reveal otherwise.

They weren’t scholars. They weren’t religious sages. The fact of the matter is, they were quite ordinary. They were hopelessly human, remarkably unremarkable. But they were available and obedient to the Master’s call.

This is just one of the reasons that I know that the Bible is the Word of God! It is a completely honest book. It gives us our heroes “warts and all,” and I for one appreciate that. That does not discourage me, but quite the opposite. It gives me hope as a flawed person. Despite our flaws, God can use you and me. I hope that encourages you today.

Copyright © 2015 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Bible text from the New King James Version is not to be reproduced in copies or otherwise by any means except as permitted in writing by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Attn: Bible Rights and Permissions, P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, TN 37214-1000

Used with Permission

Source : Christian Post

‘Persecution Follows Us … We Can’t Run From It’: Christian Monks in Iraq Refuse to Leave Ancient Monasteries Despite ISIS Threat:

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‘Persecution Follows Us … We Can’t Run From It’: Christian Monks in Iraq Refuse to Leave Ancient Monasteries Despite ISIS Threat:

Iraq CBS 60 Minutes

Christian Post Report – Yousif Ibrahim during 60 Minutes interview

Holding out in one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the world, located in Iraq’s Northern Ninevah Plains Region, three monks and a half dozen students vow to stay put despite the possibility of being overrun by ISIS fighters.

U.S. Today reports that the 1600-year-old St. Matthew’s Monastery is constantly under threat and just mere miles from the frontlines in the battle against ISIS. Many of the monks and villagers in the town fled in August of 2014 when ISIS gained more ground in the surrounding area near Mt. Alfaf, Iraq.

“We can see the battles and the airstrikes from here in front of us, especially at night,” declares Yousif Ibrahim. “The sky lights up at night, but we of course are not scared. God protects us.”

St. Matthew’s is currently being protected by the Kurdish Peshmerga military, which is now the last line of defense for the monastery, monks, and students.

Ibrahim has vowed to stay in the region until the last Christians are driven out from Iraq. “The shepherd cannot leave his sheep,” he declared.

Sahar Karaikos is one of six students at St. Matthew’s and fears for the monastery more so than for his life.

“We are not scared, because our teachers give us a feeling of peace here, but we know we are on the frontlines, and in seconds the Islamic State could be here,” Karaikos declared. “I don’t even want to think or speak about the destruction the Islamic State would cause if they took our monastery.”

Karaikos added that ISIL “does not understand what history means, they just understand the breaking of history.

“If a people don’t have the history of their past,” added Karaikos, “then they will not have a future because they won’t know what their origins are, where they came from.”

Chistians in Iraq can trace their history to the first century apostles. Prayer services at St. Matthew’s are spoken in Aramaic, the language of Jesus.

Many of the relics and books from the monastery, some from Christianity’s first century, have been moved to safer Kurdish areas further north in Iraq. The bones of St. Matthew, a 4th century Syriac Christian saint who founded the monastery, were moved because of the potential desecreation of the burial site by ISIS.

“Saint Matthew ended up here because he was fleeing persecution, but persecution follows us,” Karaikos declared. “We can’t run from it, we have to stand in front of our history.”

In March, Iraqi rchbishop Bashar Warda stated the only way to stop the Islamic State and preserve Iraqi Christianity is by defeating them militarily. “Sometimes you take some hard measures, unfortunate measures, to deal and treat this cancer,” he told “60 Minutes.”

The Chaldean Patriarch in Iraq, Raphael Louis Sako, testified at the United Nations Security Council in New York last March: “The Islamic extremists groups refuse to live with non-Muslims.

“They are persecuting and uprooting them from their homes; and erasing all traces of their history,” declared the Chaldean Patriarch. “We are facing a cultural and ideological crisis which monopolizes power, disables institutions, and restricts freedom.”

St. Matthew’s monastery, founded in 363, has survived the Ottoman and Persian Empires, Mongol invaders, and Kurdish conquests.

Nicodemus Sharaf, Archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Mosul, Iraq’s northern city now under the control of ISIS, told “60 Minutes,” “They take everything from us, but they cannot take the God from our hearts, they cannot.”

Source : Christian Post

United Church of Canada to Investigate ‘Effectiveness’ of Minister Who Professes Atheism

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United Church of Canada to Investigate ‘Effectiveness’ of Minister Who Professes Atheism

pulpit, church, sermon, preaching (Photo: Flickr Creative Commons)

Christian Post Report – File photo.

A regional body of the United Church of Canada will interview a clergywoman who is an outspoken atheist to see about her “effectiveness.”

In June, the Toronto Conference of the UCC will enact a formal process known as a review regarding the Rev. Gretta Vosper, an author and founder of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity who is also a professed atheist.

The Rev. David W. Allen, executive secretary of the UCC Toronto Conference, told The Christian Post about the investigative process.

“A review is a formal process within the United Church which is ordered when serious questions have been raised about a minister’s effectiveness,” said Rev. Allen.

“In this case, a team of five people will interview Ms. Vosper. They will report to a larger committee of 40 people, and that committee will give its opinion to the sub-Executive of Toronto Conference on whether Ms. Vosper is suitable for ministry within The United Church of Canada.”

For Rev. Vosper, Allen explained that the review process will involve interviewing Vosper to see if she continues to affirm certain questions asked during her ordination.

Allen said these specific questions are “Do you believe in God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and do you commit yourself anew to God?” “Do you believe that God is calling you to the ordained ministry of Word, Sacrament and Pastoral Care, and do you accept this call?” and finally “Are you willing to exercise your ministry in accordance with the scriptures, in continuity with the faith of the Church, and subject to the oversight and discipline of The United Church of Canada?”

According to her website, Vosper came out as an atheist back in 2001 and wants the UCC, which she describes as “probably the most progressive Christian denomination in the world,” to be more welcoming of atheism.

“After I spontaneously preached a sermon in which I completely deconstructed the idea of a god named God, rather than fire me, the congregation chose to step out on an unmarked path,” reads the About section of her site.

“With them, I’ve laboured, lamented, lost, and loved. It’s hard road but a worthy one with no finish line in sight. Let’s walk this road together. I promise you’ll be inspired.”

The UCC refers to defrocking of being when a minister is placed on the Discontinued Service List (Disciplinary). Willful removal involves being placed on the Discontinued Service List (Voluntary).

Allen told CP that being place on the DSL(D) has many steps and is “lengthy process because we want to be extremely careful out of concern for both the minister and the church.”

Reverend Gretta Vosper did not return comment to The Christian Post by press time.

Source : Christian Post

Rick Warren Remember’s U2’s Late Manager Dennis Sheehan as ‘a Calm and Kind Christian Man’

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Rick Warren Remember’s U2’s Late Manager Dennis Sheehan as ‘a Calm and Kind Christian Man’

rick warren (Photo: The Christian Post/Sonny Hong)

Christian Post Report – Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, speaks at the Pastors’ Conference 2014, ahead of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Annual Meeting, on Monday, June 9, 2014, in Baltimore, Md.

Evangelical pastor Rick Warren remembered U2’s tour manager Dennis Sheehan, who died suddenly on Wednesday, as a “calm and kind Christian man” and offered up prayers for him.

“U2’s road manager for 33 years, the amazing Dennis Sheehan, died suddenly last night here in LA. Dennis was a calm and kind Christian man,” the founder and senior pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, wrote on Facebook in a post entitled “Why I’m asking you to pray for U2 today.”

Warren noted that U2 band members Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. asked him to share quotes from Scripture, words of comfort, and pray with them before performing at their concert in Los Angeles on Wednesday. Just as the rock musicians were about to take the stage, Warren talked about his wife Kay’s book, Choose Joy, which addresses the suicide of their son in 2013. The book encourages readers to find healing in God, and the pastor advised U2 to “choose joy” despite their sadness ahead of the show.

“After sharing the #ChooseJoy story from my son’s death, I asked ‘So how do you go out and do a concert when your heart is hurting,'” Warren asked in the Facebook post. “Bono said, ‘We choose joy!’ Right. Pray for [Sheehan’s wife] Pam who lost the love of her life.”

Sheehan, 68, died after going into cardiac arrest at a hotel on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood on Wednesday, just one day after U2 kicked off their five-night stint in the Los Angeles area, reported The Associated Press. Sheehan joined U2, which is comprised of Christians, in 1982 after having worked with Led Zeppelin and Patti Smith.

U2 is on their “Innocence + Experience” tour, and shortly after news of Sheehan’s death broke, Bono posted a message to the band’s website in his honor.

“We’ve lost a family member, we’re still taking it in,” Bono noted. “He wasn’t just a legend in the music business, he was a legend in our band. He is irreplaceable.”

During Wednesday’s concert, U2 took a moment to remember Sheehan before performing the song “Iris.”

“U2 is a kind of family,” Bono explained onstage, according to U2.com. “U2 is a brotherhood. Although, there are a lot of sisters in it now that I think about it. The extended family are everything to us. We look after each other. Last night we lost a member of our family.”

Source : Christian Post

Steven Curtis Chapman, Michael Tait Join Kirk Cameron and Elisabeth Hasselbeck at K-Love Fan Awards This Sunday

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Steven Curtis Chapman, Michael Tait Join Kirk Cameron and Elisabeth Hasselbeck at K-Love Fan Awards This Sunday

2015 K-Love Fan Awards (Photo: Courtesy of The Media Collective)

Christian Post Report – 2015 K-Love Fan Awards.

The K-Love Fan Awards have announced that Steven Curtis Chapman and Michael Tait will be among the performers and presenters at year’s show with co-hosts Kirk Cameron and Elizabeth Hasselbeck on Sunday.

Chapman and Tait were announced along with Brett Kern, Ashley Smith, Thomas Davis, Brian Bosworth, Benjamin Watson, Alex Kendrick and Blanca, marking the final group of diverse presenters to appear at the 2015 K-Love Fan Awards in Nashville, Tennessee.

The latest list of presenters and performers are part of an already star-studded line-up that includes Danny Gokey, Jeremy Camp, MercyMe, Natalie Grant, among others, who will attend the ceremony taking place at the Grand Ole Opry House.

Also among the previously announced presenters at this year’s K-Loves is Chris Tomlin, Hawk Nelson, Third Day, TobyMac, Matthew West, Kari Jobe, Plumb, Crowder and The Digital Age. Other musicians, athletes and authors making appearances are for King & Country, Tim Hasselbeck, Newsboys, Louie Giglio, Ryan Stevenson, Lauren Daigle and Matt Maher.

Hasselbeck, who will act as emcee at the K-Loves alongside Cameron, said in a statement that she’s honored to participate in the ceremony.

“K-Love has always had a positive, encouraging impact on my day, and I am thankful to be a part of this year’s awards show,” said the “Fox & Friends” co-host in a statement.

Cameron also celebrated K-Love, a leading Christian radio network with over 13 million listeners a week.

“I am very excited to be co-hosting the K-Love Fan Awards this year,” said the “Fireproof” star. “I have heard a lot of great buzz on the event and am excited to come together with a great brand like K-Love to impact the culture through the arts.”

The K-Love Fan Awards are the only fan-voted awards show in Christian music history. For King & Country and Newsboys lead this year’s nominations, while additional nominees include Casting Crowns, TobyMac and Mandisa. Top awards of the night will include Male Artist of the Year, Female Artist of the Year as well as Worship Song of the Year and Best Live Show.

Vote for your favorite artist on KloveFanAwards.com/vote, and the K-Love Fan Award winners will be announced during the live show on Friday, May 29. The awards ceremony will air at 6 p.m. ET on Sunday.

Source : Christian Post

The Power of the Holy Spirit

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The Power of the Holy Spirit

Christian Post Report – Romans 8:11-14

  • Dr. Charles F. Stanley
    (Photo: In Touch Ministries)
    Dr. Charles F. Stanley (File).

Yesterday’s reading offered scriptural proof that the Holy Spirit is a person. Yet there’s a persistent misconception that casts Him as some kind of intangible force. The underlying assumption is that “the power of the Holy Spirit” is something Christians wield for themselves. But in fact, the phrase refers to His work in the believer’s life.

Jesus was clear that serving God is not a one-man or one-woman show. It takes two—a believer and the Holy Spirit—to live the Christian life victoriously (Luke 24:49). The Spirit takes up residence in a person the moment that individual receives Christ’s forgiveness for sins. From then on, His job is to equip the believer so he or she can consistently model Jesus to the world.

When the apostle Paul said, “I can do all things through [Christ] who strengthens me,” he was talking about the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence (Philippians 4:13). What this means is that within the believer is an indescribably rich power source. The Spirit works through people to get done what is impossible for them to accomplish alone. In fact, the Bible says that He can do “far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). And Paul certainly proved that with his prolific ministry.

What is God calling you to do that’s “far more abundantly” beyond all you think you can achieve? Stop making excuses and get to work! Within you lies untapped potential—not your own strength and abilities, but the unlimited might of the Holy Spirit. His power will be unleashed in response to your acting on faith.

Used with permission from In Touch Ministries, Inc. © 2015
All Rights Reserved.

Source : Christian Post

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