Tracking with spiritual gifts… a bit more to consider…
I want to be part of a church which cherishes the presence of spiritual gifts. I want to be a person who “eagerly desires” spiritual gifts and I want to eagerly desire them because they are manifestations of God’s presence in the midst of His people. I know that this is the proper way to think about these things. I have to say that it has taken many years for me to arrive at this understanding, coming from where I come from. As I have made public in my past two sermons I was poorly taught concerning spiritual gifts in my early years as a believer. I was taught to approach anything that might appear overtly “supernatural” with great suspicion. I would say that I took approximately 10 years to move from a person who was skeptical to becoming a person who is was open to the idea of “signs and wonders.” I would add on to that another number of years to go from being open to the idea to being willing to attempt to exercise these gifts. I hope that doesn’t sound to pathetic. When I read it back to myself I feel rather foolish that all those years were spent nursing an overly rationalistic Christianity. (more…)
This is Veronica Batista Mason and her husband Ronald. They are missionaries in Brazil. Ronald is from California and he and Veronica met in YWAM and married a few years ago. I met Veronica several years ago and felt the Holy Spirit prompt me to help her. Subsequently Lamb of God covered her expenses related to training in Costa Rica. I actually met up again with Veronica and her new husband Ronald last summer. They are a wonderful couple with a great heart for ministry. At the moment they are trying to aquire a visa for Veronica so that they can come to the U.S. I have included Ronald’s latest note to give you an idea of what they face as missionaries in the Brazilian Ghetto’s of Belo Horizonte. 
It was just a simple invitation to pray that led a small group of people in 1898 to meet on Saturday evenings from 9 to 10 for prayer. They met at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago to cry out for an awakening. Within a short time, the group grew to 300 passionate intercessors. A few members remained to agonize and intercede into the early hours one Sunday morning.
The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.