New Season

by Hanna Baker

We are two weeks into our Fall Semester Bible Study. This semester we're going to be going through a book entitled You May All Prophecy by Steve Thompson. We haven't actually started the book yet, as we took the first two weeks to set the stage. David being the WWII buff that he is, the discussions included (tasteful) war video clips to illustrate these questions.

 Week One
~ What are the spiritual gifts? Why are they important?
 Week Two
~ How do you begin to step out and operate in the gifts?

We looked at how every Christian has certain weapons at their disposal in the forms of prayer, fasting, and Scripture. These are the equivalent of basic rifles, handguns, etc; effective, but only a limited amount of power.

The spiritual gifts (tongues, prophecy, wisdom, knowledge, healing, miracles, faith) are the equivalent of the heavy weapons, such as grenades, M-16s, anti-tank missiles, etc.

Everyone who has committed their lives to Christ, making Him Lord and asking for and accepting His forgiveness for our sins has the power of God; the problem is that it's hard to access, or (using the illustration from this Wed) 'dammed up.' Requesting to be filled or baptized in the Holy Spirit begins the process of destroying that dam, and allowing access to be used by God in the full extent of His power.

Those of us at Bible Study who have received this gift shared our stories. It's amazing how everyone comes to that point in different ways, and how the stories differ, just like stories for each person are unique for how we came to salvation.