Holy Spirit

ENCOURAGING

Robert and Maureen McQuillan encourage readers…with some more encouragements:

Encouragement! We all need to hear from time to time words that inspire us. Life is life and throws challenging curves at us (even the best of people) that can easily throw us if we’re not trusting the Lord.

One great advantage Christians have – beyond committing every potential upset to Jesus, is to have good friends with whom we confidently trust to share things and seek their counsel and prayer support and encouragement. (more…)

HOLY SPIRIT INTERCESSION

Mike Shreve, evangelist, pastor and author, reminds believers of the Spirit’s work in the church…

According to 1 Kings 8:59, God maintains the cause of his people at all times. How? By the constant intercession ascending to him – flowing like a river from the Son of God and from the Holy Spirit.

Most believers know that Jesus is our high priest who ‘ever lives’ to make intercession for us (Heb. 7:25; Rom. 8:34). Few realise that the Holy Spirit also petitions the Father on our behalf. This is a sound biblical truth that we need to know. (more…)

CARNAL CHRISTIANITY

Dr Jim McClure, noted theologian, shares concernedly about counterfeit Christianity …

In using the phrase ‘carnal Christianity’ I am not here referring to the life-style practices of those Christians who flout biblical moral principles, but to the behaviour of many Christians who, while apparently reflecting a depth of spirituality, in reality express a carnal form of Christianity!

Let’s explore this further. (more…)

WHAT POWER STANDS BEHIND YOU?

Robert and Maureen McQuillan ask some relevant questions:

Amazing photo, isn’t it? Cunard’s Captain Kevin Oprey standing on the bulbous bow (what helps stabilise movement) of the Queen Mary 2, the world’s largest ocean liner, Photographer James Morgan took several photographs to mark the ocean liner’s tenth anniversary and Australia’s Daily Mail ran with the caption, ‘Welcome aboard my little boat.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2575169/Adrift-sea-Extraordinary-photos-captain-Queen-Mary-II-standing

Although small of stature Captain Oprey looks so confident with all that mighty power that he commands behind him! (more…)

SPRING CLEANING!

Dr Jim McClure, noted theologian, challenges…

The prophet Jeremiah encountered major rejection to his ministry. The people of Judah had chosen to follow other gods, to listen to and follow false teaching and to reject the ‘spring of living water’ whose only source was God. And God said, ‘My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water’ (Jeremiah 2:13, emphasis mine). (more…)

THE SPIRIT AND MISSION: TWO RIPPLES OF PENTECOST

Dr Wonsuk Ma shares…

In its short history (slightly more than one hundred years) Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity has not only grown, but has made a significant contribution to Christian mission.

At the time of the 1910 Edinburgh Missionary Conference, which presented a master road-map to world evangelisation ‘in our [their] generation,’ the movement was only four years old (if we count from the 1906 Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles, California). (more…)

GOD’S STRENGTH AND HUMAN ‘WEAKNESSES’

Geraldine Brandt highlights a great biblical truth…

‘Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God … Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me … Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?’

Psalm 42 excerpts – cries from the heart of David, calling on God in the midst of despair. We can picture his state of depression. (more…)

WHAT KIND OF PERSON DO YOU WANT TO BECOME THIS YEAR?

Inspirational author Carol Round writes encouragingly for 2015…

In her 1908 classic, Anne of Green Gables, author Lucy Maude Montgomery said, ‘Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?’

Although each day is full of promise and expectation, New Year’s is the only day we celebrate with fanfare and excitement. Then, as the days pass, we often find ourselves forgetting January 1 isn’t the only day we can start anew. (more…)

ANGER MANAGEMENT

Robert and Maureen McQuillan write:

Remember the Jack Nicholson movie, Anger Management? He plays a psychiatrist, Dr Buddy Rydell, who volunteers to help a guy with anger problems.

A judge asks him: ‘You think you can help him?’ His replies, ‘Yep. And if I can’t, I’ll tear him apart with my bare hands.’

(Google)
Sounds like a psych with his own anger management problem!

An LA journalist friend asks us: ‘Why are Christians so angry? Where is the love?’ A current, very appropriate question – the Holy Spirit is obviously trying to get something through to Christians.

Actually, the truth is that Christians shouldn’t display anger, yet so often we do. We’re supposed to exhibit the Galatians 5:22-23 fruit of the Spirit – the very nature of Jesus himself!

And, after all, if we Christians can control our actions, achieving positive results, surely we can also control our negative reactions! (more…)

KIDS – THE VERY CENTRE OF KINGDOM LIFE

Maureen McQuillan reflects…

Doubtlessly everyone who discovered Jesus, the babe of Bethlehem, was overwhelmed at the time and wondered in their hearts how his life, his future would develop as he grew up and what would happen to the child.

Certainly his mother Mary, and her husband Joseph, wondered some years later what had happened when they couldn’t find him one Passover. (more…)

Connecting with You!

words of encouragement from us