Anne coffey

It is through having the Holy Spirit within us that Jesus is able to enlighten and guide us as to what fields of service He would .like us to participate in.

Develop a relationship with the Holy Spirit ,a time of quiet reflection and conversation in His presence,( apart from actual prayer) enables the relationship to grow and will enlighten you and guide you concerning His will for you and His purposes.

The streams of living water are available to all. All May drink at the source. no distinctions are made,all are welcome In other words we are all one through Christ .How awesome is that thought,and how unattainable unless we learn to love each other as ourselves.

Jesus departure enabled the Holy Spirit to be outpoured to all believers and become a strong force within the world and is still a powerful force working at transforming humanity according to His will.We are his vehicle through which he works.

The Holy Spirit identifies strongly with humanity because we are his creation and therefore cares intimately in every aspect for what he has created.

To testify means to discuss and inform people about Christianity and Jesus and the transformative power it can have in their lives.

The Holy Spirit was sent to us so that we could continue with the mission that Jesus came to establish the redeeming of mankind back to their maker.

The Holy Spirit is owned by God alone He is the sole owner,therefore it must come from Him .The spirit is the unifying force which holds the Trinity together.

Jesus conducted his whole ministry through the Holy Spirit dwelling within him without the Holy Spirit none of Gods Work is possible

Jesus had to become wholly human so that we could identify with him and once we have identified with him he can then use his power to help us to become what we are capable of being

God grants to the elders a share of His spirit with which he has filled Moses but only for a brief length of time, enough time for them to be illuminated and prophesy. It is worth noting that the elders shared the Spirit allocated to Moses and only for a short time why were the elders not allocated the spirit of God in their own right?I think that this verifys that God puts his spirit into people for special purposes.Moses was full of the Spirit to bring the Israelites to the promised land the elders were part of the same purpose and as such were part of the same defining spirit

God put his spirit into people he chose so that with his closeness they could be far more effective in performing the tasks he had appointed them for He and they could work in partnership together creating an enhansed effectiveness

You are Christs body says the Eucharist, you are many, but one body,therefore if some parts of the body have ceased to function it is absolutely essential to restore them to working order otherwise the body is not going to function properly all are needed in entirety, the truth of this is emphasised by the parable of the shepherd leaving the 99 sheep in safety and searching hard for the one sheep lost. We have to care and look out for each other so that we can work together as a whole.

The elders of the church will have a mature and deep faith they will have experience of Christs power working in them so they are eminently suitable backup to encourage the persons faith who is expecting to be healed therefore the two faiths together can help the healing to take place

Healing perhaps is an authoritive grace given to a certain group of people enabled to do this in Christs name . Perhaps it is not given for us to heal ourselves. Another authoritive grace is holy communion this is something which has to be partaken of by someone with special authority to administer it. Not a devotion we can do ourselves

If we work for Christ and live for him in all areas of our life surely His coming again will be a gigantic bonus! So keep on living in faith.

Jesus said that we must make good use of all the abilities that have been given to us so it is our responsibility to see that we do,we must ask him for guidance so that we can do this according to his will and remember when using our abilities that we were given them for his purposes and not for our glory this will keep us humble. ” It is he that has made us and not we ourselves”.

All good things are created slowly and take time to deepen , quicken , and mature the nurturing quality that God provides takes time we have to learn this and accept that Gods pace is best if we remember this we can subdue our impatience.

This is a difficult one to answer,we are taught that we should not judge or criticise another and in general everyday behaviour thisis right criticism does not allow us to love and build each other up as we are also taught to do.However if we see someone beating a child or murdering someone we would have to step in and be critical and more .although I remember that Christ restored and healed the ear of the soldier cut off by Peter,with the sword in the garden of Gethsemene when he was being arrested. This suggests that even violence should be treated with passive firmness after the physical danger has passed and a way forward to love the perpetrator.

Sitting quietly and concentrating on God for period of time will enable God to restore us from within enabling us to humble ourselves before him and when we have done this these commands become irrelevant

Christians have to be involved in the world in order to work for Christ,only through our involvement with humanity can his spirit work through us to draw people to him,our personal relationship with Christ if it is faithful and close will prevent us from committing spiritual adultery.

Pleasures which keep us in touch with God are to be encouraged because they encourage our relationship with God.Self seeking pleasures which Don,t keep us in tune with God turn out to be delusionary and false and taint the relationship meaning that we have to rebuild what we had

Being a peacemaker is one of the by products of loving our neighbour as our self through this tool we can learn to empathise , the spirit of which breeds unity and builds up trust and common ground

In order to tame the tongue we have to learn to love our neighbour as our self as we have been taught to do ,enabling us to perceive all animosity with a gentle approach,not easy but heals instead of creating harm

In all my 82 years I have known many teachers of the word ,I have never met any who thought of themselves to be on a higher level than the people they were leading, teaching,and serving. The commitment to such an office produces closeness and respect between those serving and those being served and with such closeness all faults and weaknesses are immediately apparent to all.Therefore a higher plain for teachers is irrelavent. Both James and Paul were of Jewish tradition where I suspect the leaders were set apart from the worshippers and perhaps they could not contemplate a more democratic organisation that the Christian church would become