So the whole of the workplace was affected, because of one miracle that took place. Now of course they didn't all come to Christ, but that guy came to Christ; and favour came on them to start a prayer meeting in the business, to pray for the business and for the workers. Isn't that great?
God wants you to be passionate for this, to really yearn for it. The Bible instructs us: earnestly desire the gifts.
3) In 2 Timothy 1:6, it tells us: “I remind you to stir up the gifts of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.”
The word stir-up means ‘to kindle a fire’ - to get something activated and happening; so we're called to stir up the gifts. This is completely contrary to a passive, ‘waiting around’ and ‘praying for a revival’, or hoping that ‘one day’ God will do something. This says: you - stir yourself up. I'll show you exactly how to stir yourself up - what you do that gets yourself stirred up, and stay stirred up, so you begin to find God working through you. So stir up there.
4) 1 Thessalonians 5:19 – “Don't quench the Holy Ghost”.
Quench means to put out a fire that God started; so it says: don't quench the Holy Spirit.
Control, and fear, in your life - they go together, and they quench God working. Unbelief - oh, I don't think God could do this - that will quench God working in your life.
There are things that facilitate the spirit of God working; and some things quench His working in your life - reasonings in your mind will quench the flow of the Holy Spirit. Negative, critical talk will grieve and quench the Holy Spirit; so we're called not to quench Him but to learn how to co-operate with Him.
5) Finally: don't neglect the gifts of the spirit.
1 Timothy 4:14 – “don't neglect the gift that's in you”.
Don't take it lightly - don't just waste what God has given you; don't despise the little beginnings that you start with. Even if you start with a little, and it doesn't seem much, it can grow. It can grow until it becomes a great flow through your life.
Those are some of the first things that we see, concerning the gifts of the spirit:
1) There are supernatural operations; you're designed to be a supernatural being, to connect with heaven and earth, you're designed to move and flow with the Holy Spirit.
2) God wants us to add understanding how to do it.
3) He promises He'll give the gifts to every believer, every person. He desires to work through you, and it's not about maturity, it's about faith, believing for Him to do it, so you will have to extend your faith.
Faith means something like this: I am convinced in my heart God is willing to do this, and so I will step out, and start to put myself in a place where God can work through me. Always there's this threshold you've got to cross, where no matter what you've been taught, you have to actually step out and just do something. That's the point where you start to grow and develop in the things of the spirit - and you'll find God will always come with you. He won't let you down. He'll always be there.
There are many different realms that we can flow within the spirit. There's different ways we can operate in the spirit. You don't have to copy the way someone does it. God wants to work through you naturally and easily, in a very natural way, and as I demonstrate it you'll see it's very natural. There's not any contriving or striving or anything, it's very natural.
ActivationSo we're going to stop now; and I want you to do an activation. So what would that activation be? Well again I want it to be very simple so the first one, who was successful at hugging someone? Okay, great, you all hugged someone or two people so that wasn't that hard was it aye? Had to put your arms out and just hold on. [Laughs] Okay, so here's the next one I want you to do. I want you to find someone you don't know, and find something that you don't know about them, find something about them.
Now how would you go about finding something about someone that you didn't know? You'll have to ask. Now this is quite important when you're going to move in the spirit, you'll need to start asking questions. You ask questions of the Holy Spirit and He shows you things. Okay, so here's a good way to start. Go up and just meet someone that you don't know and find out something you didn't know about them. We'll do that for about five minutes, okay? So you can leave your seat.
Okay, are we ready for this session? Welcome to the next session. Second session we want to talk about hearing the voice of God tonight and I want to show you how you go about hearing the voice of God, how we recognise the voice of God, and I want to first of all give you a context for it. We're going to look in Galatians, Chapter 3 and Verse 2. The reason we want to focus on hearing the voice of God is because this is a major key to the supernatural being released, a major key for the supernatural being released. I want you to read with me if you've got a Bible or the notes - if it's an even page you may not have it, except in the ones you get tomorrow. So this is Paul writing, so just if it's not there that's okay, just focus on listening rather than searching.
In Galatians 3, Verse 2, Paul is writing to the Galatians Church. They started off as a very vibrant Holy Ghost church and now they had lost it altogether, so he's writing and he's bringing adjustment to them. One of the issues he addresses is their loss of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. One of the key reasons they've lost the manifestation of the spirit was legalism. They came back under laws and rules, do this, don't do that, and they lost completely the flow of the spirit, so he begins to challenge them and he asks them two questions. Now what you've got to see is when he asks these two questions he's actually - each one is to bring about an insight of where they're missing the mark, and the problem he's addressing is that they thought you become mature by obeying the laws. What he's saying is no, you need the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. So notice the question he asks. I want to learn this from you, I want you to tell me this; did you receive the Holy Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?