Category Archives: Fellowship

Things I have learnt at our Church Home Group.

Undignified – 2 Samuel 6: 12 – 23

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God is Good All The Time.  This has been the message of Phils preaches, as well as discussions within lifegroups.  Also that the pursuit of Gods presense is a vital part of growing in faith and our relationship with the Lord.

With this said we can often look at others, how they worship, how they react to the Lord presense and we if we don’t understand it, we can often judge it to be “over the top” or “american”!  OK so a bit of that is the Britishness in us, but the main reason is because we have developed in our minds, a list of acceptable worship methods and reactions that we feel comfortable with.  Should we then see or experience something that is not covered by our list, we are immeadiately uncomfortable with the situation.

The thing is, lots of amazing things happened in the Bible, and our short list of “acceptable” styles of worship does not do it justice!  We certainly shouldn’t be boxing the Lord God almighty into a list of expectation and acceptability.  God is almighty and cannot be contained, or restrained.  He will act how He sees fit, and people will react and worship in different ways.

Looking then at this passage in Samuel, David is really going for it!  Without the fear of what others will say or think, David worships the Lord with dancing.  Michal looks at this, and perhaps it was a bit of pride, and perhaps also she did not have dancing in her “acceptable” list, but when she sees this she is obviously uncomfortable and she challenges David.  His response is as follows (NIV):

22 “I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”

David is prepared to dance, to do whatever it is that He feels will glorify the Lord no matter what others think.  He is prepared to do even more that what he did.  He was certainly not going to confirm to other people expectations, he was also not going to worry about what people thought or said about his actions!  He was c oncentrating

on worshiping the Lord and Glorifying Him.

I think therefore we should become “undignified” ourselves.  No longer being concerned with looking “normal” or conforming to expectations, but we should let ourselves go and worship the Lord in whatever way we feel is right, and that Glorifies His name.  And also, when we see others worshiping, and perhaps their style is something we are not used to, or do not understand, lets not be quick to judge or admonish, but we should remember the day that King David, yes the King of a Great Nation, let his own hair down and worshipped the Lord “David” style!

Spiritual Gifts – 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

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Last night at our Lifegroup, we discussed the gifts of the Spirit. As part of our aims in our new Lifegroup we: “aim to encourage the use of the gifts of the Spirit in order to strengthen us spiritually as individuals and as a group”. Brynn therefore felt we should pick up on this and learn more about what the gifts of the Spirit actually are. We first looked through the gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:1-11.

Wisdom

I understand this to be the ability to advise in difficult situations, resolving arguments, solving problems etc. I don’t think it refers either to a worldly wisdom but one that is of a divine nature.

Knowledge

Knowledge of the Word, and being able to effectively communicate the Word and the Knowledge gained from it.

Faith

Matthew 17:19-20 talks of faith enabling you to achieve wonderful and amazing things. As believers we all have faith, however I think this refers to a more radical faith where the normal rationalisations we add to a situation no longer apply to those people, and the have complete and utter faith in the Lord for something.

Healing

Jesus healed the sick.  By the power of the Holy Spirit some are able to pray over the sick and the sick are healed.  I think healing can cover both physical and mental illnesses or afflictions.

Miraculous Powers

Seems to tie in with healing, however there are stories too of other miraculous things taking place in modern times, for example people being raised from the dead.

Prophecy

The ablitiy to receive pictures and Word direct from the Lord, and to then be able to effectively communicate these to the group or to the individual that picture or word is for.  I used to think that prophecy was about predicting the future, however it would seem it is more being a mouthpiece for God, speaking wisdom, knowledge, encouragement and advice into peoples situations.  Prophecy can be particularly effective when someone prophecies into a situation in your life, or into something you are thinking about, and yet they have no earthly knowledge of the situation!  This has happened to me on occasions and it is incredible.

Distinguishing Between Spirits

Often when I watch religious broadcasting, certain preachers will set off alarm bells in my mind.  Sometimes based on what they are saying, and others just the feeling that although what they are saying seems Biblically sound, their motive is not that of the Lord.  It is the ability to see what is of the Holy Spirit, and what is of satan.

Tongues and Interpretation

This is an often debated subject in the church and one I believe we are going to study together in the Lifegroup to better understand this gift.  I think in a nutshell that its the ability to talk in other languages and others have the ability to translate.  I will go into more detail in on tongues as and when we have studied it in more detail soon.

Bryn pointed out that throughout the Bible, there are other gifts of the Spirit mentioned to include:

Serving, Administration, Teaching, Encouragement, Giving, Leadership, Mercy, Helping Others, Hospitality, Interpretation of Dreams and Creative Arts.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but certainly highlights the wide breadth of gifts that the Holy Spirit can and will bestow on believers.

Why so many gifts, and why does he give them to us?  Firstly, these are gifts.  They are gifts of His grace, and not of our own doing.  He gives us these different gifts, to different people, I think to build up the church, as well as each other and to help advance His kingdom.  We all have different gifts at different levels to create balance within the Church so that we can act as one body.  Ann made a good point, if we all had the same gift for example, prophecy, we would never get through one Sunday service as everyone would be prophecying and there would be far to much to act upon!

With such a wide range of gifts at our own church, things really do work well.  We have people gifted with musical abilities, others with serving others (the welcoming team), others with leadership, others with administration (including finances etc) as well as others with serving (including those that always have the tea and coffee ready at the end of the service).  During the service also, we are lucky to have many wise, knowledgable people who bring word to us all, as well as prophecy.  The Lord has built up a dynamic Church, full of people with completely different gifts, all working together to grow His church.  Its is indeed amazing, exciting and wonderful.

Worry – Matthew 6:25-34

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Today I will be doing the talk at Youth Group on Worry.  As always I get nervous before anything like this, so I am going to write a little on what I learnt during my research for on this subject.  Hopefully will give me a little confidence boost.

Jesus asks the following questions about worry:

28 is life not more important than food?  Outlining that some of the things we worry about are insignificant compared to other far more important things that we take for granted.

26 Are not the birds of the air don’t store food and yet are fed?  Highlighting our worry about the future and the things we store up for it.

28 Why worry about clothes when God has dressed the fields with such beauty?  If God clothes them in such beauty, then surely he will clothe His children!

The above questions are highlighting our need to Trust in Him and not to waste time worrying about things that in the grand scheme of life are not that important!

Reasons for not worrying:

v27 – You are not adding any hours to your life by worrying.  In fact you are wasting valuable time!

v28 – When seeking His Kingdom, you will be provided for.

The Activity:

34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for

tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

I will then be getting the group to make a list of worries they have.  The next step is they will mark any worry classed as a yesterday, then tommorows, then the todays.

For the yesterdays we will put a line through them as we can do nothing about them now

For the tomorrows we will put a line through them as the time to do something about these will come yet the time is not now.

For the today’s we will write one thing next to each that we can do to help us worry less.  For example prayer, talking to someone, making an apology etc.

We will then end in a prayer asking to help to put His Kingdom first, and help to trust Him.  And to also leave our worries with Him.

Conclusion:

The thing you should want most is God’s Kingdom and doing what God desires of us.  Then all the other things we need will be provided.

Obedience

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Today Stuart challenged us to think about the things that we don’t always want to think about or discuss.  The word Obedience is one of them!  We first looked at how we have never needed to be taught to be dis-obedient!

Yes, my daughter aged 1 knows very well how to be dis-obedient!  It was described really well like this:  Any one born from a human father inherits the original sin of Adam back in the Garden of Eden.  That’s why it comes to naturally!  This also explains why Jesus was able to be on earth, without Sin and be the perfect sacrifice for our Sin as he, although born of a human woman, was the son of God!

Once we determined where dis-obedience stems from, we moved on to look at reasons that we should be obedient to Gods word and do as he wishes.

We looked at several verses (and I wish I had noted them down, I will probably ask for them) that described it as the desire to do Gods will, to be obedient.  I can’t describe exactly how Stuart put it, but will explain what I understood:

When we are born again as Christians, we accept the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ.  It is the GIFT of God!  We did not earn it!  This of course does not mean we should then continue to live for ourselves.

Living for Christ, and being obedient to him, allows us to lead fulfilled lives, allows us to grow a strong relationship with him, as well as allowing us to do his will, including bringing others to the Lord.  I have never met anyone in my life whom has lived for themselves, and could tell me that they were truly happy.  And from my experience, when I have lived for myself and been dis-obedient, I have been miserable!  When you accept the Lord into your life, he sends the gift of his Holy Spirit who convicts your heart, and makes his desires your desires!

Before I was saved I could sin and feel no remorse!  Now if I sin, I immediately feel terrible and seek the Lords forgivness for it is our hearts desire to be obedient, to do his will, to reach the lost, and to be fulfilled.

Stuart also pointed out that although we are saved we are still to be judged, therefore if we are saved yet don’t live for him, we will still feel some loss when we reach heaven and realise there were blessings we could have benefited from!

In a nutshell, being obedient to his will allows us to grow and to be used for his glory.   And store up those blessings in heaven as you can’t take your possessions with you!