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(Isa 55:1)
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2009
Question for the day: What can we pray for YOU about today?
Good morning,
This is just a reminder that every day, while we are studying God’s Word to add to our website, someone from our ministry, Dysmas Conduit, is holding you up before the Lord in prayer. May He greatly bless you today as you pursue His will and He is glorified through you.
God’s blessings, our love,
George & Sidney Granger
Today’s Chapter in God’s Word
1 Corinthians 12
Listen at
http://www.audiotreasure.com/webindex.htm
Spiritual Gifts
1-3
What I want to talk about now is the various ways God's Spirit gets worked into our lives. This is complex and often mis-understood, but I want you to be informed and knowledgeable. Remember how you were when you didn't know God, led from one phony god to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did it? It's different in this life. God wants us to use our intelligence, to seek to understand as well as we can. For instance, by using your heads, you know perfectly well that the Spirit of God would never prompt anyone to say "Jesus be damned!" Nor would anyone be inclined to say "Jesus is Master!" without the insight of the Holy Spirit.
4-11
God's various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful:
wise counsel
clear understanding
simple trust
healing the sick
miraculous acts
proclamation
distinguishing between spirits
tongues
interpretation of tongues.
All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when.
12-13
You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you're still one body. It's exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.
14-18
I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn't just a single part blown up into something huge. It's all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, "I'm not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don't belong to this body," would that make it so? If Ear said, "I'm not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don't deserve a place on the head," would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.
19-24
But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn't be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, "Get lost; I don't need you"? Or, Head telling Foot, "You're fired; your job has been phased out"? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the "lower" the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it's a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn't you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?
25-26
The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don't, the parts we see and the parts we don't. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.
27-31
You are Christ's body—that's who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your "part" mean anything. You're familiar with some of the parts that God has formed in his church, which is his "body":
apostles
prophets
teachers
miracle workers
healers
helpers
organizers
those who pray in tongues.
But it's obvious by now, isn't it, that Christ's church is a complete Body and not a gigantic, unidimensional Part? It's not all Apostle, not all Prophet, not all Miracle Worker, not all Healer, not all Prayer in Tongues, not all Interpreter of Tongues. And yet some of you keep competing for so-called "important" parts.
But now I want to lay out a far better way for you.
CURRENT PRAYER REQUESTS:
Please pray for Mike and Sandy Brommer as they spread the Lord’s Seed and witness to His glory while on the road today. Please pray also that the Lord will lead them to Kingdom-profitable loads to carry, and that He grants them safe passage today to
THANK YOU FOR PRAYING FOR PASTOR BOB ALLMANN
Please remain in prayer concerning his continued healing and that he is upheld by the Spirit, becoming physically strong as he returns to serving the Lord… what he loves to do!
Please continue to pray for Billy Hamburg, whose doctors found 5 tumors in his bladder. He had surgery June 29th and the biopsy results showed a cancerous condition. He will be undergoing chemo & radiation treatments and will need the Lord’s Hand to overcome his anxiety as well as the cancer.
UPDATE:
After more testing, the doctors have found that, despite the number of tumors found in and around the bladder, that the cancer has NOT spread to any surrounding muscle tissue or organs. They are looking at completely removing the bladder and replacing it with a piece of intestine. WE PRAISE GOD AND GIVE HIM THE GLORY FOR THIS; WE ALSO PRAY THAT BILLY WILL RECOGNIZE THIS AS GOD WORKING IN HIS LIFE!!!!!!!!!
Pastor Greg Finke
In Luke 10, Jesus tells us a story that is intended to answer the question, "Who is my neighbor," but also illustrates what courageous generosity is.
Jesus tells the story of a man going to
That was courageous generosity. Not only did the man take time out of his schedule and coins out of his wallet to care for this person in need, he courageously stepped into the situation to serve rather than stepping around it.
Last Sunday in worship, we talked about other people we know who have shown courageous generosity. We talked about Pastor Gonzales, Pastor Lonnie's father, who went back to
We talked about Amanda who last summer would head up to the south side of
We talked about the Holder family, sacrificing here so they can go minister among the AIDS orphans in
Interestingly, these folks would not consider what they are doing all that courageous or even generous. They consider it a privilege to be able to do hard things in order to bless other people.
We admire these kinds of people. We applaud them. But here's what Jesus wants to know: Will we join them?
What could courageous generosity look like in your life?
What promptings of the Holy Spirit have you maybe been trying to ignore or avoid? Is it time to take courage and step into this rather than around it?
Now might be a good time to ask Jesus about it.
Be wise and be Church,
Pastor Greg
…and…
TURNING POINT
Dr. David Jeremiah
Stay Compassionate - Part 2
Thursday, October 08, 2009
It's safe to say that, in some way, all of our lives have been affected by the chaos of this world-and most of us are doing our best just to get by. But we're so busy being distracted by our own problems that we don't see the people God has put right in front of us - people more in need than ourselves. In this message, author and teacher, Dr. David Jeremiah continues in his newest series, Living With Confidence in a Chaotic World and challenges us to stay compassionate, even in the midst of difficult times.
Series: Living With Confidence in a Chaotic World
VIEW OR LISTEN AT
http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/Turning_Point/
GDLC Message: http://www.gdlc.org/worship/sermons.aspx
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http://dysmasconduit.weebly.com/
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