Vicki Higgins

God gives spiritual gifts. Yes, our "natural" talents are related to our "spiritual" gifts. They all come from God. The difference between a natural God-given talent and a spiritual gift is that anybody can have a natural talent, and use it without ever giving recognition to the fact that it comes from God; a spiritual gift is something that is bestowed on a believer and used to give God glory.

We must expend a great deal of energy on Christian unity. "The bond of peace" is what keeps us together when we disagree. We strike at peace when we are intent on argument and dissension because we put our prideful need to be right ahead of keeping unity.

Patience and humility are so important to preserving unity because we can't be united with someone if we can't tolerate them or if we're too busy showing how great we are. When we have right doctrine along with a sense of arrogance towards those who disagree with us, the reputation of Jesus Christ gets tarnished. We are to be both "gentle" and "to fight the good fight of faith" by acting the way that Christ did.

According to verse 1, the standard of our behavior is to act as though we are worthy of the calling we have received. The "calling" to which God has called us is to follow Jesus.

As we are between congregations right now, I'll say that if bringing glory to God were considered the very most important function of any church, there would be more unification and less people (like us) looking for a different place to worship. If bringing God glory was my most important job, bar none, my life would be happier because I wouldn't be wallowing in the bitterness of a dead marriage or worrying about my children or money or a million other things that occupy my mind.

To be "filled with the Spirit" means a continual closeness with Him. It is a continual reality. To be filled with the Spirit we must yield ourselves, let go of our will and our want to. Being "filled with all the fullness of God" is like the end result of continually being filled with the Spirit.

Our human-ness prevents us from comprehending the far reaches of Christ's love. When we do comprehend, know, and experience this love, we live in a way that is for others rather than ourselves, for what we can give not what we can get. If I could grasp this, my marriage would be healed; I would be able to see my husband as Christ does and love him in spite of himself.

I think the concepts of (a) strengthened by the Spirit in the inner person, and ( Christ dwelling in our hearts say the same thing, yet are separate and distinct ideas in the same way that the Spirit and Christ are the same, and yet separate and distinct.

Ephesians 3:12 teaches us that we may approach God with freedom and confidence. If we try to pray without these qualities we are shortchanging ourselves.

Paul is so careful to be humble about his call and apostleship because he knew that it wasn't about him, it was and is about Christ. His example can help us remain as humble servants by reminding us to give God the glory in everything we do, because without Him, we can do nothing.

The "mystery" that Paul is talking about is that we who are not Jewish have an equal part in God's kingdom with His chosen people. It was important to the Gentile Christians in Paul's day because they were made to feel inferior simply because they were not Jewish.

God's revelation to "His holy apostles and prophets" is our authority for faith and practice because He reveals it to them and they teach it to us. The danger of minimizing or straying from that revelation is, at best we miss out on the full extent of the blessings He has for us, at worst we risk disappointing Him and the punishment that comes for sinning against Him. The danger of superceding that revelation is, according to Rev 22:18, becoming the personal recipient of all the plagues that are prophesied. The danger of denying that God reveals Himself to us and to His church today is, again, missing out on the abundant life He has planned for us and not receiving the instruction we need to follow His will.

The signifcance that my congregation was made to be "a dwelling place for God in the Spirit" is that He is there, I need to be there too. Animosity towards individuals hinders that from being fully experienced. To help that become more fully experienced and appreciated, I can work on putting aside my differences with people and focus on God.

To have "access to the Father" means exactly that; we can talk to Him, one on one, no intermediary needed. The Holy Spirit facilitates this access by being sort of a translator. When we don't know how to pray for something, or when our emotions are so great that we can't focus, the Holy Spirit brings our petitions to God for us. Jesus enabled this access by dying on the cross so we could all receive the Spirit.

Jesus as Messiah "fulfilled" the Mosaic Law in the sense that He completed the law. The purpose of the law was to enable sinful man to fellowship with Holy God; Christ's sacrifice made all of the previous laws unnecessary because His sacrifice covered all mans' sins for all time. The significance of that for Jewish people is they no longer had to go through the ritual of 'transferring' their sins to the animal and then sacrificing it in order to be forgiven; Christ took all their sins on Himself. For us Gentiles, it means being granted access to Someone who we have no claim to, like having some powerful important person invite you into their home and treating you like one of their own children, only a million times larger than that.