More on the Holy Spirit!

We had a great class this past week, lots of interaction and discussion on the Holy Spirit, the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and Speaking in Tongues.

We just barely scratched the surface of the Holy Spirit, but I like to think that we gave you a good introduction to who the Holy Spirit is, and what His purpose is.  I really enjoyed our conversation on how awesome God is in his design of what must be the most complex language ever, which is the heavenly language we sometimes hear during a message in tongues and interpretation in the church, and also in our private prayer language. One of the things we talked about is how complex our own English language is. Words like to, too, and two & for, four, and fore all sound the same but have so many different meanings. Imagine how many different meanings God could have for 1 word in His language? It is beyond our comprehension, God is so AWESOME!

This Wednesday, Brother Black will be teaching us on the Gifts of the Spirit which is going to be a GREAT class!

One of the things we talked about last week that I wanted to reiterate on the Blog was that in all things we should remember to "Test the spirits..." as 1 John 4:1-3 teaches us,
"¹ Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ² This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³ but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world." Click HERE to visit the verse.

The reason for testing every spirit (a person moved or inspired by a spirit) is that "many false prophets" will enter the church. This will be especially true as tolerance for error and unbiblical teaching increases toward the end of the age. Christians are commanded to test all professed Christian teachers, writers, preachers, and prophets, and in fact any individual who claims his or her work or message comes from the Holy Spirit. Believers may never assume that a ministry or spiritual experience is from God merely because one claims it is. Furthermore, no teaching or doctrine may be accepted as true solely on the basis of success, miracles or apparent anointing. All teaching must be tested against the revelation of God's truth in scripture. The spirit of the teaching must be tested as well as its content. Does the teaching bear the same kind of spirit and emphasis as Jesus and the NT apostolic teaching? Beware of any teaching that person claims to have received from the Holy Spirit or an angel that cannot be supported by scripture. Teachers' lives must be tested as to their relation to the spirit of this age or ungodly works and to the lordship of Christ.

This testing of the Spirits is close to my heart, if we can learn to test and discern the spirits, we can protect ourselves and our loved ones from erroneous and misguided, and in some cases demonic teachings!

You can click HERE for the notes on the 9 Part Test for the Genuine Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

I wanted to reaffirm the importance of these parts of our class from Wednesday for you guys and gals. Also be thinking and feel free to post some questions you would like for us to discuss and teach on during one of the next couple of weeks. I'm really excited for our final class in week #7 which will be on witnessing and sharing your faith! Make sure you comment, post your yard sign in our Facebook group, and of course BRING A FRIEND! Hope to see you at church Wednesday!

Please post some comments on what you thought about last week's class and what you are looking forward to this week!

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