Posts Tagged religion
How To Have Strong Friendships
In my line of work I talk to people on almost a daily basis that are dealing with hurt and pain from friendships gone bad. The are any number of reasons that friendships can and do go bad, and regardless of the reason it usually leaves those involved with pain and hurt. We all desire to have good friends and strong, healthy relationships.
The strongest foundation you can have for building healthy friendships is making sure that your own relationship with God is right. When you are born again and have His Spirit living within you, then the good fruit of the Spirit begins to grow.
As you daily read His Word and seek to live in the light of what He teaches you, godly character naturally develops. You learn to treat others with His love and grace. Things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are evident in your life, and these are all conducive to satisfying relationships.
If I walk in God’s light and you walk in His light as well, then it is impossible for us not to have a healthy friendship! We automatically have things in common. Our overall goals and values will be in harmony with each other. Our relationship will not be destroyed by pride, anger, hurt, unkindness or jealousy. We’ll confront when necessary, speak the truth in love, and leave past hurts and frustrations at the cross of Christ.
While it’s certainly a good thing to be in a healthy relationship with God, doing so doesn’t mean that your friends will necessarily have the same values as you. They may not have an interest in walking with the Lord. However, even if this is the case you can still bring a lot of positive things to the friendship. Focus on your own relationship with God and pray for your friends that may need it.
For an interesting study, take a look at 1 Corinthians 13 considering this to be an instruction manual for developing healthy relationships. Think about each of the characteristics of love described in that passage and see how it applies to starting and growing a satisfying, lasting friendship.
Father, thank you for helping me to build a solid foundation for my earthly relationships. I ask for your help to make me a better friend both to You and to all of those people who are in my life.
Dr. Ann Shorb provides professional counseling to individuals, families, and couples from her Hanover, PA office. She helps clients with a wide variety of issues including Christian marital counseling, premarital counseling, addiction, AD/HD, depression, anxiety, and more.
Prophetic Ministry In Church
Posted by Matthew Wong in Bible on April 17th, 2010
He that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort (1 Cor 14:3) The Lord gives the Body of Christ the gift of the Holy Spirit, especially the gift of prophecy to edify, to exhort and to comfort His beloved children. But it is very important for the community to understand how a prophetic ministry is supposed to work in order for it to function as it should.
We are required to submit to each other in love. There is different hierarchy in the Kingdom of God. God designed it that way. Jesus, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Jesus is God. But He willingly submits to the Father. Who am I to say I am too good to submit to the leaders who God put upon us?
While we must care for all that God has commissioned to us, we must give extra care to the prophetic ministry. Prophecy is characterized by the divinely inspired information which reveals God’s will, God’s plan and even God’s feeling and emotions. For this reason, it is capable of greatly encourage someone, but in the case of misuse can also greatly damage a person or a community. One concept we must not miss which is that prophecies cannot be treated as authoritative as the scripture. Prophecies are God’s inspired thought presentation human words. It is often mixed with the words of the vessel being used to deliver the message. No matter how anointed the prophetic person is, he only prophecies in part.
The pastor or the leadership of a church must take up the responsibility to administrate the prophetic ministry in the church with biblical principles. If he does not do it, the unrestrained and alone prophetic team or person would be giving prophetic ministry on their own and receive rejections from time to time. This would hurt the person and also the congregation.
In Kansas City, there is a church supervised by Pastor Mike Bickle. He experienced a lot about the prophetic and is now very mature in working with prophetic ministries. But there was a time that he did not understand everything the way he does now. At that time, a lot of prophetic words are allowed to be shared in the Sunday services. The prophetic people were not guided or administrated properly because Mike thought that these people must know exactly what and when to say the words since they can listen to the Lord. But it turned out this was not the case.
The Holy Spirit gives different gifts to people according to His own will. He does not give a person prophetic anointing because the person is spiritually mature. In fact, we often find immature or even carnal people receiving and operating in great power and spiritual gifts, just like what happened in the Corinthian Church. The leadership of the church is commissioned to administrate these people so that they can use their gift to edify the church in the will of God. God wants us to work together like different parts of a body.
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