To pursue growth in this area takes courage, effort; and a willingness to deal with blocks in our own heart!
The gifts of Faith; Healing; and Working of Miracles are defined, with examples.
The Gift of Healing is distinguished from praying by faith for healing.
Find out how to prepare yourself to grow in these gifts. Your community needs it.
We've talked about: the gifts of the spirit being for everyone, the flow of the spirit, hearing the voice of God; how God speaks to you; and how the gifts all work out of hearing God. It's not religious or outrageous, it's just actually quite simple and very natural.
Then we saw then how to get: words of knowledge, prophetic words; how to actually pick up a thought, pick up an idea, and begin to move.
Then you have to then learn how to minister to people as well, so we'll give you practical things on that; then we'll look at the area of healing; then faith and miracles; then the practical aspects of ministering to people (and pray with you).
Now whatever you get, you've got just the seeds of it. Everything that you grow into your future, you have to grow by diligently working with God in this area. So you can just have a one-off seminar - get some experience, see God work, have Him work through you - and then go no further; or you can make a decision that: I want to grow in these things.
All of us have to make growth in this area, a pursuit. It just does not happen. It's a pursuit to stay alive in the spirit; and to deal with issues in your life. It's a pursuit to keep stretching out looking for opportunities, and letting God work with you. It takes courage and effort to ‘put yourself out’ into the risk zone. It's easier to just be comfortable and not do it - but it's so exciting when you do. It's so exciting when you do!
It's God's plan in this hour that the church be filled with power, and it go out in the community, and that most of your ministry's done outside the church walls; so we've provided an easy and safe setting, and I've tried to break the teaching down so you could see it easily; and then begin to just have a chance to practice.
All of you have really broken through beyond where you started, and some have discovered you've got some internal blocks. That just is where you are, in your stage of your journey.
Most of those internal blocks have to do with yourself. They have to do with fear, they have to do with what you believe about yourself, about God, and about circumstances of life. So when there's a block, it means you're not connecting with your heart - because your heart has been trained to shut off, when it's in certain conditions or situations.
Proverbs 4:23 – “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of your heart flows the issues of your life”.
So your life, what you live out, actually comes out of not all that you think - it comes out of the issues that are in your heart; and those issues, you learn over the course of your life.
Some of the things, that are blocks in the heart, are what I'd call ‘generational curses’ and ‘generational spirits’. They're generational in origin. You were born into life with them, and you can be delivered of those blocks.
Unless you're delivered of those blocks, of the inequity, and the spirits around it, you tend to repeat the patterns of your parents; although you fight against it all the way, and don't want to be that way.
A second area that is a cause of problems, are where we actually have ‘bondages in the heart’ - where there's been painful situations, trauma or abusive or hurtful situations, betrayal in relationships; and as a consequence of that, you have defended yourself by building walls and barriers in the heart.
It could be inner vows, death wishes, it could be control, it could be statements that you've spoken into yourself, that now build a wall around your heart to keep you safe - and that's what now you're dealing with, because you're trying to access your heart.
So when you were young you defended yourself, because you had no other way of coping. Now you're older, you've got Jesus to defend you and to help you; but now you find you can't break out, because you've got these things inside you, so this is the journey of walking with the Lord, and we run various things in the church to help with that. It helps open these areas up, so whenever you see something advertised - enrol and get into it, so that you can address opening up your heart, and growing in freedom of heart.
Another thing that happens in life is: we come to believe certain things. Whether they're right or wrong is not the point, at this moment. If you believe it, then it's true for you; so if you believe that: ‘no one likes you’; ‘everyone is against you’; ‘I'm not good enough’, ‘I'll always fail’ - then that's actually what you'll begin to experience in life. It's like a negative expectancy pulls things into your life