Teaching Themes
Lakeside Community Church Perton plans a series of services usually around a life-related theme.
The Christian life is not designed to be lived through our own strength, but by the power of the Holy Spirit who resides within us.
He produces spiritual fruit and provides spiritual gifts – the tools of the trade. We are encouraged to eagerly desire spiritual gifts in co-operation with the Holy Spirit who gives those gifts as he determines.
When our children pursue us for somthing they really want, that we know they will enjoy and treasure, its hard as a parent to resist; we often plan in secret to make the occasion even more significant, waiting to see the delight on their faces!
God will release his spiritual gifts in us as we eagerly desire them. At New Wine this year I found myself holding out my arms and yearning before God to release the gift of healing in me.
Each time I attend a Bible week like New Wine, or a church moving in the gifts of the Spirit, I’m even more encouraged to step out and have a go and I encounter a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit who reduces doubt and increases faith which can be caught as much as taught. I believe in the anointing of God for works of service.
God wants us to succeed and overcome all the works of the enemy in the process.
There is a process and we have to start somewhere with a goal in mind. Paul encourages us to ‘eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy’ (1 Cor 14:1). I believe this is a good starting point and this series begins with choosing to believe the prohetic gift can be a key to unlock the rest. Try and picture yourself eagerly desiring spiritual gifts and then on top of this even more desiring prophecy. When you do this, how can God resist and not give you what he promises to give.
If you are reading this based in a church other than Lakeside Community Church Perton, you will find a practical exercise you can try at the end of the message. When you step out in faith it is really exciting! When you pray for prophetic words before a service and give them out, it is exciting when you have taken a risk to see the very thing you heard/ felt/ pictured etc, actually take place. You are blessed and so is the person who is helped through that prophetic ministry. John Wimber called it ‘loving God and playing with the toys.’
God bless you,
Rob Pearson, Pastor
Overcoming - lessons from Lazarus (2) (Genesis 11:45-12:10)
John Savage, 27/10/2009Part of the Overcoming series, preached at a Sunday Morning service
| Earlier: | Same day: | Later: |
|---|---|---|
| « Unblocking stopped up wells (Overcoming with Isaac) | None | Dealing with the past - overcoming unforgiveness » |
Genesis 12:1-10
12:1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. 9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.
10 Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. (ESV)