Many people today are seeking after various methods of improving their personalities. There are many books available on such topics as winning friends or influencing people, and you see much advertising which features methods whereby supposedly dull people can become the life of the party, or wallflowers can win the hero medal of their neighborhood. These things would be more amusing where it not for the fact that many Christians follow this worldly lead and ape the earth-dwellers in their seeking for personality development.
There is a great Biblical doctrine, a doctrine which is right along the same line, which is often overlooked by many who should know better. That fact is that the Holy Spirit was given by God to take possession of the life and individuality of the believer, and to express His divine personality, or one small aspect of it, through the believer’s life and personality. Let us approach this truth by the backdoor. The Bible tells of men who were possessed by demons whose lives expressed the identity of those demons.
Anyone who approached these poor, stricken creatures could be immediately aware of the sinister personality controlling and dominating the stricken being. There are several descriptions found in the Gospels which show these personalities manifesting themselves in men: “exceeding fierce” (Matt. 8:28,) “dumb” (Matt. 9:32), “lunatic” (Matt. 17:15), “unclean” (Mark 1:23), “crying” (Mark 5:5), “pinning away” (Mark 9:18) a nudist (Luke 8:27), and other delinea-tions of character which ceased with departure of the demon.
If the presence of a demon in the life of a man could so alter his identity, covering the true human personality and exhibiting the demon personality, how much more shall the Holy Spirit’s presence in the life of a believer dominate his personality by expressing the personality of God in the life of the yielded believer? Here is a clue to the inner meaning of the great verse: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22). You can’t duplicate that by consulting a psychiatrist or by reading a book on self-expression. At times, we meet people who, judged by the world’s standards, are fearfully drab and colorless, lacking in what the world calls personality. Yet, we note in many instances the definite marks of the presence of the Holy Spirit in that life. There is warmth and tenderness towards life and it’s problems, a love and devotion not to be found in the selfish world, a color and life easily visible to the discerning eye. When we think of what these people would be without the presence of the Lord within them, we can glorify God in them.
The point is, let’s let the Holy Spirit take hold of all our personalities so that through Him we may glorify God and love one another!
Pastor Pat
I want to take this opportunity to introduce a blog written by one of the deacons of our church on his web site that features his Christian music compositions. It reads:
Can Praise Music Be Bad for You?
I read a really interesting blog the other day from a Christian woman who revealed an epiphany she recently had that her love for praise music was actually standing in the way of her relationship with Christ. This woman thrived on Christian music that glorified the Lord to the point that if she didn't hear it most all the time, she would feel herself fall into a spiritual slump. To hear her tell it, one day the Lord spoke to her (through His Holy Spirit) and informed her that she was using her cherished music to get a spiritual "high", while all the time, God was trying to get through to her telling her what her gifts and ministries were. But she was so distracted in getting her emotional fix, His voice went completely unnoticed.
Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with praising the Lord through song. But a balance must be struck. Most modern Christian music tends to send a clear message of what wonderful things God has done for us, but rarely mention our duties and obligations of obedience to Him. Our relationship with Christ is a two-way street, and I fear in our religiously liberal age, many believers aren't doing what God's expectations of them, because they neglect their responsibilities in at least trying to live up to what the Bible says they should be practicing. (By liberal age, I'm referring to those who tend to twist the scripture into meanings that suite the lifestyle they want to live and that they feel comfortable with, or worse yet, those who believe the Word of God was only relevant to the society of believers two thousand years ago, so they don't have to live by Christ's teachings today.)
A lot of the lyrics to my personal compositions and most all the lyrics to the songs we sing at worship time in our church stress what we are to do for God in order to reap the benefits and blessings He wants to so abundantly bestow upon us. We're not here just to go to church on Sundays. We have been given a command to spread the joy of knowing Christ to the world. The Word of God cannot be any more clear - we must run the race to the finish line to receive our victor's crown.
Yes, we praise God in our lyrics too, but I hope the Christian music you listen to prompt you to think about our relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in ways you hadn't thought of before. At least, that is my goal. My prayer for you is that you take a quiet time and pray for God to lead you in the direction in life He is trying to send you. We so rarely do that, and it's one of the most important things as Christians we should be doing regularly. Christ in the garden said, "...not My will, but thy will be done..."
As always, love others as God has loved you.
Deacon Dave
If you have a private prayer request, even if that request is to know Jesus as your savior, e-mail us at torsogong@ yahoo.com. We will forward it immediately to the appropriate ministry, whether it be the pastor and elders and/or our Prayer Warriors. Please title the subject of your e-mail "Prayer Request".
God bless you.
There is a great Biblical doctrine, a doctrine which is right along the same line, which is often overlooked by many who should know better. That fact is that the Holy Spirit was given by God to take possession of the life and individuality of the believer, and to express His divine personality, or one small aspect of it, through the believer’s life and personality. Let us approach this truth by the backdoor. The Bible tells of men who were possessed by demons whose lives expressed the identity of those demons.
Anyone who approached these poor, stricken creatures could be immediately aware of the sinister personality controlling and dominating the stricken being. There are several descriptions found in the Gospels which show these personalities manifesting themselves in men: “exceeding fierce” (Matt. 8:28,) “dumb” (Matt. 9:32), “lunatic” (Matt. 17:15), “unclean” (Mark 1:23), “crying” (Mark 5:5), “pinning away” (Mark 9:18) a nudist (Luke 8:27), and other delinea-tions of character which ceased with departure of the demon.
If the presence of a demon in the life of a man could so alter his identity, covering the true human personality and exhibiting the demon personality, how much more shall the Holy Spirit’s presence in the life of a believer dominate his personality by expressing the personality of God in the life of the yielded believer? Here is a clue to the inner meaning of the great verse: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22). You can’t duplicate that by consulting a psychiatrist or by reading a book on self-expression. At times, we meet people who, judged by the world’s standards, are fearfully drab and colorless, lacking in what the world calls personality. Yet, we note in many instances the definite marks of the presence of the Holy Spirit in that life. There is warmth and tenderness towards life and it’s problems, a love and devotion not to be found in the selfish world, a color and life easily visible to the discerning eye. When we think of what these people would be without the presence of the Lord within them, we can glorify God in them.
The point is, let’s let the Holy Spirit take hold of all our personalities so that through Him we may glorify God and love one another!
Pastor Pat
I want to take this opportunity to introduce a blog written by one of the deacons of our church on his web site that features his Christian music compositions. It reads:
Can Praise Music Be Bad for You?
I read a really interesting blog the other day from a Christian woman who revealed an epiphany she recently had that her love for praise music was actually standing in the way of her relationship with Christ. This woman thrived on Christian music that glorified the Lord to the point that if she didn't hear it most all the time, she would feel herself fall into a spiritual slump. To hear her tell it, one day the Lord spoke to her (through His Holy Spirit) and informed her that she was using her cherished music to get a spiritual "high", while all the time, God was trying to get through to her telling her what her gifts and ministries were. But she was so distracted in getting her emotional fix, His voice went completely unnoticed.
Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with praising the Lord through song. But a balance must be struck. Most modern Christian music tends to send a clear message of what wonderful things God has done for us, but rarely mention our duties and obligations of obedience to Him. Our relationship with Christ is a two-way street, and I fear in our religiously liberal age, many believers aren't doing what God's expectations of them, because they neglect their responsibilities in at least trying to live up to what the Bible says they should be practicing. (By liberal age, I'm referring to those who tend to twist the scripture into meanings that suite the lifestyle they want to live and that they feel comfortable with, or worse yet, those who believe the Word of God was only relevant to the society of believers two thousand years ago, so they don't have to live by Christ's teachings today.)
A lot of the lyrics to my personal compositions and most all the lyrics to the songs we sing at worship time in our church stress what we are to do for God in order to reap the benefits and blessings He wants to so abundantly bestow upon us. We're not here just to go to church on Sundays. We have been given a command to spread the joy of knowing Christ to the world. The Word of God cannot be any more clear - we must run the race to the finish line to receive our victor's crown.
Yes, we praise God in our lyrics too, but I hope the Christian music you listen to prompt you to think about our relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in ways you hadn't thought of before. At least, that is my goal. My prayer for you is that you take a quiet time and pray for God to lead you in the direction in life He is trying to send you. We so rarely do that, and it's one of the most important things as Christians we should be doing regularly. Christ in the garden said, "...not My will, but thy will be done..."
As always, love others as God has loved you.
Deacon Dave
If you have a private prayer request, even if that request is to know Jesus as your savior, e-mail us at torsogong@ yahoo.com. We will forward it immediately to the appropriate ministry, whether it be the pastor and elders and/or our Prayer Warriors. Please title the subject of your e-mail "Prayer Request".
God bless you.
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