Date:   7/5/2014 9:57:49 AM ( 10 y ago)
Hits:   1,078
URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=2186035

0 of 0 (0%) readers agree with this message.  Hide votes     What is this?

Everything has spread and branched out so much there is no word/name to describe anything anymore. It's like someone took the spiritual dictionary and scrambled the words. It use to be there was definite meaning when one said Baptist or Presbyterian or even Pentecostal. You knew what each one believed. Now I grapple with finding correctness here...I fail miserably. So please bear with me.

I do not call myself Pentecostal because I see it as a gift as any other gift God could give me. I don't see it as any greater gift. Also because I have a definite church home. These are a group of people that I see eye to eye with on most issues. We help each other as family does. This is of course after one takes care of their own families needs first. There are poor and needy within the church walls as well as other countries...so basically not everyone has a call to other countries to be of help...besides the true reason to go to other countries is to preach the gospel to the unsaved...as well as trying to meet their needs as God provides.

We are commissioned by Jesus to go into all the world preaching/teaching the gospel...."feed my sheep" has duel meaning...but the gospel is considered first and most important as to why we go. Jesus rebuked people for thinking of their earthly life more than their spiritual life....yet He still fed them both spiritual and earthly food.

He rebuked them because they worried more for food, clothing and earthly needs before they thought of their spiritual needs first. Seeking the Kingdom of God by way of the gospel has always been first. When God changes our hearts, then we are prepared to battle the enemies of God who wish for people to suffer.

Loving people and meeting their needs are wonderful..but meeting their earthly needs are only that, it does not have the everlasting value that Jesus wanted us to share with them. Why just give them bread when you can give the "Bread of Life"...real life...not just a short lived earth life.

Ok, off my preaching box and onward in our discussion.

Like you, I have kind of used the word pentecostal in all different ways...but it mostly meant people who believed that the gifts of the Spirit were still valid today.

I did not receive my gift through any ministry or laying on of hands. I was not even expecting it to happen. You may have been praying for me however...I don't know...but I was coming back from a trip out of state where I had been living with an older, widowed aunt who had no children to look out for her. She had had a stroke and was not able to stay by herself after she got out of the hospital. Her needs were great but she did not want to go into a nursing home or come back home with me. I had to patiently wait for her poor mental condition to ease up so we could discuss what we were going to do, so I could get back to my own home. Of course later I would find out that she had Alzheimers as well as a stroke, which explained why reasoning with her was useless.

Anyway I had found her a live-in nurse to stay with her 24/7 and I was in the process of driving back home and I was so happy and relieved that everything had worked out so well. I was enjoying the drive and praising God for the beautiful day he had blessed me with...thanking Him for everything He had done to work out my Aunt's issues.

I had brought a church hymnal with me to be able to sing songs along the way. I wish I could remember what song I was singing but I came to a place in the song where I did not know all of the verses by heart. Traffic had increased so I didn't want to be looking at my hymnal at that time to find the correct words. So when I got to the unknown verses, I would sing what I did know and just hummed or sort of made up words to that song until I would get to the parts I knew so well.

At first I didn't think anything of it. I was just making up words to fits the parts of the song I didn't know...yet I noticed I was singing the whole song with unknown words. Once I became conscience of doing so I stopped singing and just spoke. Then the tone changed into the sound of prayer and inner groanings.

Then a deep sobbing came about as the tone of the unknown words came out. I had no idea what I was saying or if it had any meaning what so ever...but deep down I felt like I was purging things that were deep in my heart that needed to be said. This went on for some time...I even had to pull over at one point. It gradually ceased and I continued on my way. I felt so light afterward. I would normally have said that it was all due to the stress that I endured for that long period of time that caused the tears and the release...but this was different. Not at all like an emotional feel good that one gets after a good cry. It was more like a huge burden was lifted off of me. I was different somehow.

Anyway I wanted to share this testimony because I realize it's different for everyone, which is part of the reason all of this is so hard to piece together to find out if something is of God or not.

The question is...can fruit be faked? We realize that the bible says we will know them by their fruit...but we have already said that people fake the fruit...whether in spiritual gifts or in the act of doing good deeds for mankind in order to cover up their evil deeds. It happens in the world and in our churches as well. However, there are just as much lies told about the truth as there are exposings of the evil.

Anyway, may God guide you on your individual path to find the answers you seek as well as everyone else. We need His guidance every step of the way.
 

<< Return to the standard message view