{"id":893,"date":"2010-10-31T21:33:13","date_gmt":"2010-11-01T04:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/?p=893"},"modified":"2024-08-18T07:05:44","modified_gmt":"2024-08-18T13:05:44","slug":"god-wants-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2010\/10\/god-wants-you","title":{"rendered":"God wants you (pointing finger)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the style of Uncle Sam Wants You posters, God wants to join his army.\u00a0 Fortunately, God respects our free will and will never force you to do anything.\u00a0 But if you make yourself available, God is eager to use you for his purposes.\u00a0\u00a0And just like Uncle Sam, he doesn’t send you into battle unprepared.\u00a0 God\u00a0gives us the Holy Spirit to equip us.\u00a0 The Holy Spirit does many things in our lives, this is just a few of them:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. John 14:26 says the Holy Spirit is our Comforter, and reminds us of things Jesus has already taught us.<\/li>\n
  2. 1 Cor 3:16 says our body is God\u2019s temple, and his Spirit lives in us.\u00a0 In the Old Testament God lived among his people via the tabernacle and later the inner chamber of the temple.\u00a0 He sent the Holy Spirit so that he could dwell with all of us.\u00a0 As my 2 year old daughter would say in a cute 2 year old voice: \u201cGod lives in my heart\u201d.\u00a0 This is only possible by the Holy Spirit.<\/li>\n
  3. Acts 1:8 says we will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on us, so that we can be Christ\u2019s witness to the ends of the earth.\u00a0 God wants us to continue his ministry here on earth even after he ascended to heaven.\u00a0 I don\u2019t believe this is limited to the subject of his ministry, but also the method of his ministry.\u00a0 The subject of Christ\u2019s ministry was of course love, grace, and salvation.\u00a0 But the way in which he demonstrated these things to the people was through miracles.\u00a0 It\u2019s a lot easier to teach someone the gospel after they\u2019ve just been the recipient of God\u2019s mighty love in the form of a personal miracle.\u00a0 And this is the best form of advertising.\u00a0 News didn\u2019t travel by fast back in those days, and yet Mark 6:55 tells us that when people heard that Jesus was coming they ran<\/strong> to get their sick so that they too would be healed.\u00a0 John 21:25 says Jesus did so many miracles that the world does not have room to contain enough books to document what he did.\u00a0 Jesus wasn\u2019t just about eternity, he was also about the here and now, heaven on earth.\u00a0 God gives the Holy Spirit so that we can continue the method of Jesus\u2019 ministry.\u00a0 John 14:12 says:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    12<\/sup>I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13<\/sup>And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14<\/sup>You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.<\/p>\n

    God gives you the Holy Spirit because he wants to use you for his purpose.\u00a0 But when we exercise the Gifts of the Spirit, who\u2019s really doing the work?\u00a0 Certainly it requires an obedient person to submit themselves to the work of the Lord, and to align their own spirit with the Holy Spirit, but the work of the manifestation of any of the spiritual gifts still belongs to the Lord.\u00a0 We merely become a conduit for God\u2019s blessing and power.<\/p>\n

    This point was made clear to me one night when I was praying with Becca.\u00a0 I thought I had finished my prayer, yet my spirit still wanted to pray.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to pray in tongues because we are still rather new to that sort of thing and I didn\u2019t know how she would receive it, so I resisted.\u00a0 But the impulse to continue to pray did not subside, in fact I was soon feeling physical twitches in my lips!\u00a0 So I told my Becca that I felt I needed to be obedient to what the Lord would have me do and I began to pray in the spirit.\u00a0 During my prayer there was one phrase where I felt I had received the interpretation, so I shared the interpretation as \u201cmore of me, less of you\u201d.\u00a0 As soon as I said this, I flinched.\u00a0 I recognized what I had just said but thought I had botched it up.\u00a0 \u201cLess of me, more of you\u201d is a phrase that we sometimes here at our church, and has become a kind of a prayer mantra for me this year, but I had said “more of me, less of you”, which taken plainly is a very selfish statement.\u00a0 So, thinking that I had inadvertently switched the words, I felt somewhat embarrassed but corrected myself and continued my prayer, \u201cless of me, more of you\u201d.<\/p>\n

    Some days later I was pondering how I could have made such a silly mistake in a time of intense prayer. \u00a0Yes, it could have been a simple mental slip up, easy to do, but given that I had prayed it many times before it was less likely.\u00a0 Then God gave me a revelation:\u00a0 If praying in tongues is a gift given by the Spirit so that God can use it to execute his will, then the wording \u201cmore of me, less of you\u201d actually makes perfect sense!\u00a0 If the Holy Spirit was praying through my mouth that Becca would focus more on God and less on her immediate troubles, then \u201cmore of me, less of you\u201d is 100% appropriate.<\/p>\n

    Coming to this realization was very humbling.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that I <\/em>had spoken in tongues or I <\/em>had received an interpretation, but instead it was that God <\/em>was able to work through me by manifesting 2 of the spiritual gifts within me.\u00a0 \u00a0I wasn\u2019t providing the words, God was providing the words!\u00a0 Or more generically, we don\u2019t summon the power of the Holy Spirit so that we <\/em>can do miracles.\u00a0 Instead, we simply make ourselves available to be used by the Holy Spirit so that God <\/em>can do miracles simply because he loves his children.\u00a0 The distinction between the two is very minor and easy to lose in words, but the implications of the two mindsets is tremendous for someone who wants to serve Jesus in the way that we are empowered to in John 14:12 and 15:7.<\/p>\n

    Even if it was a mental mistake, I thought it was a pretty cool revelation and in faith choose to accept it as words from God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In the style of Uncle Sam Wants You posters, God wants to join his army.\u00a0 Fortunately, God respects our free will and will never force you to do anything.\u00a0 But if you make yourself available, God is eager to use you for his purposes.\u00a0\u00a0And just like Uncle Sam, he doesn’t send you into battle unprepared.\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[3233,4115],"class_list":["post-893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","tag-spirit","tag-witness","wpcat-9-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p504YJ-ep","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":710,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2010\/05\/wheres-the-beef","url_meta":{"origin":893,"position":0},"title":"Where’s the beef?","author":"Nate","date":"May 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"There are lots of different studies out there that try to quantify the percent of Christian adolescents that keep their faith after leaving home, and explain why not. These studies have a high degree of variability in their results, but the overarching conclusion is usually the same for American churches:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/faith"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/holyspirit.jpg?fit=856%2C342&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/holyspirit.jpg?fit=856%2C342&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/holyspirit.jpg?fit=856%2C342&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/holyspirit.jpg?fit=856%2C342&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":721,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2010\/08\/bait-and-switch","url_meta":{"origin":893,"position":1},"title":"Bait and Switch","author":"Becca","date":"August 17, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Ever since Jr. High I\u2019ve regularly had pain in my knees. If I don\u2019t do anything athletic for long periods of time my knees will return to a comfortable state, but immediately after any kind of athletic activity my knees well swell and stiffen for weeks. And of course this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/faith"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/testimony.jpg?fit=512%2C341&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8733,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2015\/04\/i-believe","url_meta":{"origin":893,"position":2},"title":"I Believe","author":"Becca","date":"April 5, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I believe in God our father I believe in Christ the Son I believe in the Holy Spirit Our God is three in One I believe in the resurrection That we will rise again For I believe in the Name of Jesus (Hillsong - This I Believe)","rel":"","context":"In "Becca"","block_context":{"text":"Becca","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/becca-2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":719,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2010\/06\/modern-day-prophets","url_meta":{"origin":893,"position":3},"title":"Modern day prophets?","author":"Becca","date":"June 28, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This weekend I found myself having a rather unexpected conversation with a friend about whether or not prophets exist today. I decided to do a little research to find specific biblical references that lead to me believe what I believe about modern-day prophets. My definition of prophet is different from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/faith"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/caa0b5c52c08d174eac91d53d5b5f988.jpg?fit=618%2C464&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/caa0b5c52c08d174eac91d53d5b5f988.jpg?fit=618%2C464&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/caa0b5c52c08d174eac91d53d5b5f988.jpg?fit=618%2C464&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":918,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2010\/11\/secret-wisdom","url_meta":{"origin":893,"position":4},"title":"Secret Wisdom?","author":"Nate","date":"November 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ll admit it, there are some parts of the bible I don\u2019t like.\u00a0 This doesn\u2019t mean I don\u2019t accept them on faith, it just means there are areas in the bible where I hope to someday come into better emotional peace and intellectual understanding so I get the fuller meaning,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/faith"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/1cor212.jpg?fit=600%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/1cor212.jpg?fit=600%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/1cor212.jpg?fit=600%2C600&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1039,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2011\/02\/why-i-love-2-rivers-church","url_meta":{"origin":893,"position":5},"title":"Why I love 2 Rivers Church","author":"Nate","date":"February 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Today's church service\u00a0was a good example of why I love 2 Rivers Church.\u00a0 But first, a little background information for those who are not familiar with 2 Rivers: Our services are about 1:45 minutes long, the first half is praise and worship, then we have intermission so kids can be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/faith"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/14993545_1332249753465454_3330296587445989871_n.jpg?fit=950%2C950&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/14993545_1332249753465454_3330296587445989871_n.jpg?fit=950%2C950&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/14993545_1332249753465454_3330296587445989871_n.jpg?fit=950%2C950&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/14993545_1332249753465454_3330296587445989871_n.jpg?fit=950%2C950&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/God_Needs_You-2.jpg?fit=480%2C360&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27760,"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions\/27760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}