The Rock San Diego – 5/31/09 – The Invisible Man Initiation: Baptism in the Holy Spirit

Mom’s prayer day

Yesterday, mom let me know that she has decided to admit herself into a recovery facility.  It’s a month program.

Her friends had a prayer meeting for her today.  This experience really showed me the power of friendship. I feel this experience may have been God telling me the importance of the support of close friends.

Lord, please reveal to me the people you intend for me to bring in to my close confidence.  People who you call me to support and who you call to support me.  I pray that you would provide a small group of friends so that I may consistently experience your love in the way that I experienced it for mom today.

The Rock San Diego – 5/24/09 – The Invisible Man Software

God has amazing potential planned for you – more than we can ever ask or imagine. He wants us to ask Him for everything!

Lord, I want it all – everything that you intend for my life – I want it all!  God, please push me to the next level.  Every challenge you have in store for me, I want it.

Stand before God every morning and pray to God and tell Him you want it all.  If God is telling you to do something, go ahead and do it.

Supplements help your body do what it’s already supposed to do:

• B12 and folic acid help your DNA repair itself
• 2 oz of pomegranite juice per day cuts down your arterial plaque by 35% in one year
• Omega 3 fatty acids (fish oil) helps neurotransmitter production (brain function / memory)
• Vitamin D (the sun)
• Antioxidents
• Licopene

Our bodies have so much potential.
God created our bodies with incredible potential to heal themselves and thrive, but in order for them to function to their potential, we have to feed our bodies with the right nutrients and get rid of toxic exposure. Our souls are the same way. The Holy Spirit gives us unique and incredible gifts that we can’t get anywhere else – like a computer has software to perform its functions – but we need to care for our souls and nurture them properly so that we can live up to God’s potential for us.

God enhances abilities you already have. Romans 12:3-8

You may be great at many different things, but God can enhance your talents and make them even better and more effective for His kingdom:

• Prophecy
• Ministry
• Teacher – The way you know you can teach is if people learn.
• Exhorter – sharing complements and encouragement
• Giver
• Leader – only way you can know is if someone is following you, otherwise you’re just going for a walk.  The definition of leadership is influence
• Mercy – compassion

God gives us special abilities that we can’t get anywhere else. 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, 28-31

• Word of wisdom – how to use information
• Word of knowledge
• Faith
• Healings/Miracles
• Prophecy
• Tongues
• Tongue Interpretation
• Discerning Spirits

God gives special people as gifts to the church ministry. Ephesians 4:11-12

• Apostle – church planter or pastor of pastors
• Prophet – someone who receives a fresh word from God for today
• Evangelist – leads people to the Lord
• Pastor – shepard
• Teacher

God also graciously gives us other gifts. Ephesians 4:11-12

• Love – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
• Salvation – Roman 5:15-16, 6:23
• Righteousness

God grants us all of these things in His gracious generosity. In return, our responsibility is to:
1. Create an environment for the gifts to operate.
Ezra 7:10, Romans 12:1-2, 1 Corinthians 3:5-8

• Ezra prepared his heart to seek the Lord, just as we have to prepare our hearts to seek Him. When we read the Bible and pray, we nurture ourselves and give the Holy Spirit a fertile environment in which to plant the gifts He wants to give us.
• A tree with a crowded root system, surrounded by rocks and other plant roots, will not grow nearly as strongly or as quickly as a tree in good, spacious soil. So we also must cleanse our hearts of sin and replace it with the Word. Do you ever feel jealous? Act immaturely? Sin gets in the way of God’s gifts working to their potential, but we can thrive if we forsake our sinful desires and feed our hearts with the Word and prayer
• Yield to Him – surrender to Him as moldable
• Imagine what God would do if you only seek Him and then wait on Him
• Create an environment for God in your heart – prepare your heart

• Know your spiritual gifts, create an environment where they can flourish, and then put yourself in a position where your gifts may be used. If you are an encourager, make yourself available to encourage and seek out opportunities to encourage others. Whatever your gifts, make yourself available to be used however He ordains.
• God has a picture of you that is your full potential. As Paul says, we press on toward that goal, letting the Holy Spirit do whatever He wants to do in our lives. The Lord opens up opportunities because He doesn’t want to waste you! We simply need to be available and respond when the moments arise.

Lord, put me where I can glorify you with the gifts you’ve given me – whatever that is.

Someday we’re going to understand the magnificance of God and wonder why we didn’t trust Him more.  And we’re going to see how puny the devil is and wonder how we were so scared of him and his lies.

Being scared is ok.  It doesn’t mean He’s wrong, it just means I don’t ‘get it’ yet.

DO Something! Find your gifts; take the Spiritual Gift Test. Visit www.therocksandiego.org/giftstest/

The Rock San Diego – 5/17/09 – The Invisible Man Tools

Miles started off this week’s message with an announcement, asking everyone to pray for Miss California, Carrie Prejean. As many of you are aware, she is being attacked in a variety of ways for standing up for her beliefs.

For several weeks we have been covering the Invisible Man, or the Holy Spirit, and His purpose in the Trinity and in our lives. This week, Miles taught about how the Invisible Man empowers us for the spiritual work that He has assigned us to do. This empowerment comes in the form of supernatural tools, gifts, abilities, and talents.

Software empowers a computer to do something very specific.  When you accept Christ, God empowers you to do things that you could not do without him – very specific skills.  You may have spiritual gifts and abilities which you don’t know how they work.

What are spiritual gifts?

1. Spiritual gifts are the supernatural manifestation of the Holy Spirit in our lives to empower us to serve the kingdom of God.

• I have power that comes from somewhere else
• We don’t develop these gifts, we simply have them from the beginning. As Miles put it, trying to attain these gifts would be like staying in the garage for a long time so that one could become a car. It can’t happen!

2. We must become aware of our gifts and know what they are. 1 Corinthians 12:1.

• If your gift is one of leadership and not of speaking in tongues, you will have a hard time trying to speak in tongues. God gave us gifts to use to do magnificent things, but we won’t be able to do these things until we know what our gifts are.

God gave us gifts to use to do magnificent things, but we won’t be able to do these things until we know what our gifts are.

3. Gifts are bestowed upon the body of Christ for the purpose of serving the church and accomplishing God’s purposes in the world.

• The gifts are not for me – they’re for the church
• 1 Corinthians 12:7 says, But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.
• Does one hide Beethoven’s music? Does one bury a priceless painting? No! Just as these artists shared their talents with the world, we are supposed to share our gifts.

4. The Holy Spirit gives as He wills.

• You have natural talent and spiritual gifts
• He’s equipping you for a purpose
• He doesn’t waste gifts – they are for specific purpose
• If you’re not using your gifts – you will have restlessness in your life
• Doesn’t mean you can’t do your job – it means you’re not doing what you were created for – you’re not firing on all cylindars – DON’T DO IT – get another job – ask God can I get another job and ask for him to show you what he has in store for you – it might not be immediate
• But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills. 1 Corinthians 12:11
• The Spirit gives us the appropriate gifts to serve His purposes, not ours.

5. No one person has all the gifts.

• People are the most dependent creatures
• Need to appreciate each other’s gifts – just because the person is different, doesn’t mean they (or their gift) are any less important
• We need each other and each other’s gifts. By nature, Humans are the most needy creatures on the planet. There are animals that are independent from their parents at birth, but we are not. Humans raise their young – sometimes forever. By giving each person different gifts, God reminds us to be inter-dependent, needing and appreciating one another.

The Spirit gives us the appropriate gifts to serve His purposes, not ours.

6. All gifts are important.

• If God has given you a gift that’s not being used for His Kingdom – the church is missing out
• The devil wants your spiritual gifts to be unknown or unused, and the best thing for him would be for you to be happy / comfortable in spite of it
• The church is also called “the body of Christ,” and for good reason. All parts are important! Some parts are used daily, while others are used infrequently. Though a pinky might not seem important, it sure comes in handy while typing. And many body parts we cannot even see, such as the lungs or the liver, yet we cannot live without their vital function. 1 Corinthians 12: 22-26 reminds us that all the parts are important, just as all the parts of the church are important. Therefore, we should respect each other’s gifts.

Lord, I want to be doing exactly what you want me to do, using the gifts you have bestowed upon me, now.  Help me understand what my gifts are.  Put me in a position to use them.

7. The activities of the Holy Spirit are mysterious

• Being born again is like the wind, you don’t know where it comes from, you don’t know where it goes
• The Holy Spirit guides in the moments – be open to His guidance

• Negative stress (out of control type) in your job is also a sign of not doing what you are gifted to do.
• Doing what God has called you to do is a form of obedience – display of love
• There are things you know God is calling you to do – take a step of faith and do them
• Don’t try to do everything – do what God has called you to do – live within your gifts
• Whatever God empowers you to do – that’s what you need to do – that’s when your life and your Christian walk will go to the next level
• When you ask God for opportunities to use your gift, He will show you opportunities
• Once you start operating in your gifts, miracles happen
• One of the reasons God answers prayer is so that you’ll pray more

Lord, my whole life is in open hands – wherever you can use me, please do it

What is the difference between spiritual gifts and natural talents?

8. Natural talents depend on the flesh – spiritual gifts depend solely on the Spirit

• You know you’re a leader when someone is following you – if not, you’re just going for a walk
• God wants to empower your gifts with His strength
• Natural talents glorify man, while spiritual gifts depend solely on the Spirit and glorify Jesus. Both are good and given by God, but they are different. Remember the story of Joseph? He had a natural talent for organizing, which helped him in prison and then later as Pharaoh’s right-hand man, but his spiritual gift was interpreting dreams.

You can find out what your gifts are by visiting the Rock’s website. Once you know, you can use these gifts to enrich your life and enrich God’s kingdom.