Tag: Hearing God

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Discipleship Getting Help Holy Spirit Kingdom of God Ministry

Changing Life Seasons

Photo by Andreas Dress, on Unsplash.com

In a recent exploration among fellow Spiritual Companions, I described my current cycles of growth where I felt aerated—like ground broken up for planting fresh crops—good and necessary for the long term and a difficult process in the moment.

I’m getting older and am cutting back on taking on new projects. I am getting help to manage the household; all because I’m discovering that I have less energy than before. Having to make such changes is hard.

Yet, making these changes helps me focus more on my calling to share the Good News of the Kingdom of God that Jesus preaches, and help activate people at The Miracle Café in the highlands of Panama, where people learning how to minister are helping others experience miracles of healing and restoration in other areas of their lives.

Earlier, I knew a transition was in progress for me. At first, it was difficult. More recently, I knew through Holy Spirit that my spirit was confident. Even though my soul—my mind—did not consciously know what the transition was towards.

I guess that’s a sign of growth. There was a time I didn’t trust so well, and I would have tried to insist on knowing what was going on and understanding the process before I would choose to trust the process. Now I trust God more completely. (That is good progress, I am sure of it.)

Feeling like ground that was too hard and not yet ready for planting while being plowed—was still difficult though.

There will be more changes. Change is always in progress. For me, spring is not so far away now. Other seasons will follow.

A deep help for me was being asked key questions and seeking to answer Spiritual Companions and Holy Spirit. Being encouraged helped me put this into words, and I understood with greater awareness and consciousness. Support, friendship, and encouragement helped.

Spiritual Companionship is a great and necessary help for me and all of us. We go through transitions easier and better with such help, even when they are challenging.

Transition and change can be painful, difficult, wonderful, and joyous in any combination. 

Transition is much more productive as we seek help through Holy Spirit, which is often easier and faster when we have the encouragement, help, and support of Spiritual Companions.

We all go through transitions and many changes. It is easier and faster, and more joyous for us with excellent help. Yet, seeking help from Holy Spirit is easy and effective with help from Spiritual Companions.

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Gifts Spiritual Gift

Activate Spiritual Gifts More Easily

Heart-shaped candle in her hands.

Activating Spiritual Gifts may be much more easy than you expect. And there are keys that help, keys that help hugely!

This key will make sense by hindsight. The key is service, or actually seeking to use your gifts. And there is another key that successful users of Spiritual Gifts do more than the rest of us – they ask questions.

The error I long made, and maybe you have, too, is to try to discover or use a gift without actually applying it in service or asking questions.

A useful way of thinking about this is to Follow Jesus. Model your ministry after what Jesus does.

Jesus ministers as he sees or hears from Father.

You can do this, too.

But how do we start, and get results? Simple: respond to a need. Bring the Kingdom of God to what is needed. Restoration is what Jesus did again and again. And, he destroys the work of the devil, the adversary.

You can do the same. How?

Look for needs, look for a need in someone’s life. Ask questions, such as:

  • How do I help or minister to this need?
  • What do you want me to do about this?
  • How do I pray for this situation, this person?

Then simply pay attention to what comes to your attention next. Being careful not to let thoughts, associations, ideas, images, or any experience pass by without assuming and accepting that this is an answer to your question.

And, because, as Dan Pendergrass once told me when I was asking about why replies from God are so often surprising, he said simply that God knows more than we do.

What we miss, in activating our gifts, too often or easily, are things like this:

  • Forgetting to bring God’s agape love to a person with a need.
  • Neglecting to ask how to minister.
  • Forgetting to ask how to pray for the person you are loving and for their need.
  • Not realizing that what comes to your attention next is actually an answer and reply from God. It’s unexpected, seems too easy, seems too ordinary.

How do you get started, if you don’t see where or how to get started? Ask Jesus to point out to you or bring to your attention people who need ministry or service or restoration (of health or well being).

Ask and serve. Ask and minister. In serving or ministering, you are applying and using your Spiritual Gift where needed. A great way to be living.

Categories
Discipleship Getting Help Hearing God Kingdom of God Presence of God

Hear God Better & Minister More Powerfully

It’s no secret that Jesus did as he heard our Father say to do, and what he was shown. When we are wise, we will want to do the same.

It’s also no secret that Jesus had Holy Spirit on him since his baptism in water, and Holy Spirit remained on him.

He heard his Father with Holy Spirit on him. He ministered with Holy Spirit on him. That’s the Anointing, the experience of Holy Spirit for a purpose.

You can hear God better and you can minister more powerfully by doing the same.

How can we do the same, as we think we are not Jesus in the flesh?

Well, we are part of the Body of Christ. Jesus lives in us. We can minister and express Jesus in ministry, and we can set ourselves apart to hear our Father — just as Jesus did.

What is too often missing that makes this hard or mysterious to us?

It’s simple when we know. When we remember. What’s the key?

Holy Spirit is key.

So ask for more of Holy Spirit in you, ask for more of Holy Spirit on you. By faith. Ask by faith, receive by faith. Simple. And ask with deeply honest sincerity.

Ask for more of Holy Spirit in you and hearing from God is so much easier.

Ask for more of Holy Spirit on you, and ministering with your gifts and with greater ease and effectiveness is much easier.

Ask for more of Holy Spirit. Receive by faith. It’s simple.

And when you are having trouble hearing God well, and when you are having difficulty ministering well — you will do these things better and more easily with more of Holy Spirit.

Ask and receive, with compassion (agape love) and with faith.

Hear God better and more easily, minister more powerfully and effectively with more of Holy Spirit that you ask for and receive by faith.