Considering answers to those faith-questions we all ask…
Tag: Faith
According to Biblical examples, being in the Spirit is a worshipful state in which any true believer - anyone who has come to saving faith in Jesus Christ - can engage with God. It's a focusing on God and HIs written word. It's a prayerful or meditative state of mind and heart. It's submission to the will of God according to HIs word. It's a humble, loving and repentant communion at any specific time, and it can and should be a way of life.
We Christians aren't dependent on physical evidence to support our faith, but when it comes along, as it does regularly, it's thrilling and welcome. The Shroud of Turin has been commonly ignored in the protestant world since it first began to make news. I confess to being one of those who didn't even bother to look into the claims of its origin. I've never been one for relics, ceremony, rituals or buildings, and when I heard that the shroud's authenticity had been all but debunked by radiocarbon-dating I was turned off it altogether... until recently. Now, I see myself as a believer in the shroud, with slight reservations. Click the title to read on.
The gift of speaking in tongues is often defined as the ability to speak in heavenly languages - the languages of angels or of the Holy Spirit Himself. Such languages are said to be powerful and carry more weight when it comes to prayer, healing, testimony and spiritual warfare. If this is all true, the believer with this gift is truly on a higher spiritual plain than those without the gift, and the motivation or even the obligation for all of us to receive it is great.
A passage of Paul's letter to the Romans is commonly held up as "exhibit A" in support of the practice of "praying in tongues". However, when you really look at it closely, you see that these verses have nothing to do at all with tongues.
Human beings the world over and throughout history have tried in a multitude of ways to get the attention of God. They've built statues and enormous temples; they've danced wildly under the moonlight; they've burned people alive; they've chanted and shouted on mountain-tops; they've starved themselves, cut themselves, and gone to war... all in an effort to make God look their way. It's a grown-up version of the tizzy-fits children sometimes engage in, in a determined effort to get their parents to respond.
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 