We recently song a new song in church that Misael Acosta and I wrote.  We adapted the text from a puritan prayer “The Great God,” from the book “Valley of Vision: A collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions” by Arthur G. Bennett. This is a great book to pick up, the prayers are all one page long and also very thought provoking.  Great if you want to be able to read something that you can think, pray, and meditate on throughout the day.

This particular prayer is very humbling.  Recognizing that we are sinful and helpless apart from God and it is He and He along that can Read the rest of this entry →

The Spirit is conveyed as relating to believers as the “paraclete,” which means the “helper” or “advocate.”  The Spirit is understood as one who is “called alongside to help the believer,” and thus our preaching, teaching, and worshiping of God should be understood in light of the Spirit’s aid.
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When the authors of the various books of the Bible began their treatises, did they sit down, take pen in hand and say, “now what should I write?” Were the ideas, words, and concepts of their own making, or did God tell them what to write?  The answer is “yes” to both. Sometimes God did tell the authors to write specific information, but more often the authors wrote what they thought were their own words unknowingly being given to them by God’s Spirit. As 2 Peter 1:20-21 reminds us, “above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Read the rest of this entry →

1 Corinthians 12:27-13:3

The concept of prayer is a mystery that the finite minds of man have, at least in my opinion, difficultly grasping.  Prayer is seen throughout the entirety of the Bible, and thus there are many avenues in which prayer could be understood.  Within this article the role of the Holy Spirit in the prayers of believers will be briefly examined. Read the rest of this entry →

Mention the Holy Spirit among modern day Christians, and the subject of spiritual gifts will not be far away.  Three passages of Scripture (Romans 12, Ephesians 4, 1 Corinthians 12) list a variety of gifts which are present in the church. 1 Corinthians 12:7 tells us that “to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good”, meaning that the Spirit of God is present in each of the gifts. Read the rest of this entry →