Encouragement and Freedom

Acts 6:1-7

1 In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews [a] among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. 2 So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, "It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3 Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4 and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word."
5 This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. 6 They presented them to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.
7 So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.

Yesterday at Church, we had a great time learning about Jesus the Healer and things were going great. One of our attenders had a total turn around during the week, he almost appeared as a new being claiming he had finally found God. Things are going great at Glenroy Salvation Army with our adopted new Sprirtual leaders - Lt Colonels Brain and Elaine Hood.

One of our 'members' was talking to me after the meeting and gave me an insight to an answer I've been after. I've been wondering why we're still not repenting as God's been asking of us. I thought our church was hard of heart but the answer seemed to come through our childrens story.

Our CSM was taking our young ones through the parable of the seeds falling on different types of ground - ie, the path, the thorny ground and good soil. It seems as though we don't have hard hearts but the seeds, or the word of God in our lives are falling on thorny ground and as it is growing in our hearts it is being strangled and taken over by the world. The world has too much of a hold on our lives still - be in the world but not of it!

Now I come to the part to explain the Bible verse above. Our congregation seems to have more fault finding abilities than encouragement abilities - which can have it's advantages if in balance with the encouragement. In my martial arts teachings, I've learnt that for every one bad punch, for example, you need to do seven correct ones to re-correct the one wrong. I thought of this yesterday when people started comming upto me to complain about the things we aren't doing well enough - hey, there is plenty of good things that we are doing, but the complaints are weighing me down too much, I feel drained and disouraged by all of this. No one said a word of encouragement yesterday, just one would have been enough!

Anyway, in Acts 6 (above) due to the complaints of the church, more leaders needed to be raised to deal with the other things that were lacking. At Glenroy, it seems that everything falls on the same people and no one else will offer to help - it's not that they couldn't, they just dont. I'm wanting the church to re-focus on the blessing and laying on of hands that used to happen, to place the blessing of God back onto peoples lives. This way we can re-introduce the baptism of the Holy Spirit back into the disciples of Jesus. I know this is happening in many places, but not enough!! Imagine the world with God's Spirit manifesting in our lives everywhere we go if we hand over all of our lives to God's will - can you see the Great Southland of the Holy Spirit?!

Just to finish with, let's be more encouraging, I know it's not in my nature, but when I give the Holy Spirit reign in my life it starts appearing. We need to be people of encouragement and give hope to those who have no hope, and free those people who have the hand of Satan over their eyes.

Walk in the Spirit - the freedom of Jesus our Christ and in the blessing of our Great God!!