Cessation

Cessation with limited continuation: Ended after the apostolic period. Spiritual Gifts are still active but only a selected few are not active. I don't think speaking in tongues are needed today. I never yet seen a deaf person speaking in tongues and finding two interpretors. I know there are people speaking in tongues today but not many are able to interpret them. If there are no interpretors, then speaking in tongues are not needed simply because we have the Word of God and the Holy Spirit is using other means to help us to spread the gospel. I truly believe in healing but I don't believe we can obtain healing through another person. God do not need a person to heal person to heal anyone, especially to Christians who are already saved. However, I do believe there are times that healing can happen through missionaries who are preaching the Gospels in strange countries so that those who are not listen can listen. The bottom line about Spiritual Gifts. Get to know all of the gifts and listen to your brothers and sisters in Christ pointing out your gifts. Many times they say things to you indirectly, all you have to do pay attention and learn more about what you have heard. To use your spiritual gift, all you need to do is walk in the Spirit, let the Holy Spirit do what He will through you. Allow the Holy Spirit directs you, and see people affirm your spritual gifts are going to be something that causes people (the local church) to respond, because it is for them. The idea of the spiritual gifts is simply that the Lord uses that gift in a unity, in a unifying way. God uses your spiritual gifts by His Spirit as He wills. Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit produces power, love, a sound mind through you. Without Christ, you are nothing. Along with love and under the control of the Holy Spirit, the power of love and Holy Spirit flows through you since the only way the spiritual gifts are going to operate is love. Love is the key. God is love. He gave us two commandments. We are to love God and others. With the Holy Spirit and love, we will walk in the Spirit, Christ produces the fruit. And out of that fruit comes whatever the ministry of the gifts Christ wanted us to use. I can't say "total cessationism" or "partly cessationism"... I am saying I believe in cessationism in many parts of the world. There are gifts that are not needed in areas as part of the Great Commission. I believe God will use whatever sources He will use around the world because He is simply God. What I am trying to say, its all come down to common sense when we are ministering others and there are gifts God will provide for us to use at HIS discrection, not ours.

Language of the People, Bible Translations

In my opinion, God's Word should be in the "language of the people" which means the everyday language, and not the English of 500 A.D. or 1000 A.D. or 1611 A.D. or 1800 A.D. or 1900 A.D. We are living in the 2005 A.D language. People to say that we should stay with an Old English Bible or KJV or whatever, when we need to focus on the "language of the people," in today's time. By putting pressure on people to focus on KJV or whatever would do a disservice to the TRUE message of the Bible. We need to communicate God's Word in the clearest possible manner. Each of us have our OWN preference of any translations without feeling guilty nor feeling pressure to read that we are not comfortable with. The only perfect Bible was those original manuscripts which are not currently available. God has preserved the translation of His truths over the years and we can trust our Bibles by relying on the Holy Spirit.

Which is more difficult, to heal disease or forgive sin?

When Jesus was on earth, before He died on the Cross, miracles (i.e. Healing) proved that Jesus is the Messiah that the Jews have been looking for, because the Old Testament have said of what the Messiah would do when He came down to earth. Those miracles are His credentials as the Messiah--signs that point convincingly to His deity, for only God can do the things that He did. Reading the New Testament, the Pharisees never denied His miracles; they only denied the source of them, meaning they refused to believe that Jesus is God. Going back to the Gospel that mentioned Christ's miracles, lets look at the first three miracles that Matthew recorded in chapter 8. Three men said they wanted to follow Jesus, HOWEVER they loved personal comfort, personal riches, and personal relationships more than Jesus Christ, so they turned their backs and walked away. Jesus showed them that He is the Messiah but the chose NOT to follow the Messiah. Through out the Gospel, set of miracles came the responses of conversions and the irritation of the Pharisees. Let's take Pharisees for an example, Pharisees got very irritated at what Jesus says because He confronts Pharisees legalism. Back to Matthew, miracles mentioned in chapter 9, many people have responded to Jesus who were looking for their Messiah. But at the same time, religious leaders who got irritated with Jesus because He is destroying the Jewish Religion system. Jesus became a threat to the religious leaders, they had Him killed (on the Cross). When Jesus performed miracles, He was trying to get His creatures' attention. The word marvel (Gk. thaumazo) is a very comprehensive word. It means amazed or astonished. When accompanied by a prefix (Gk. ekthaumazo), the word means "to marvel greatly" as in Mark 12:17. Luke 9:43 (NIV) And they were all amazed at the greatness of God. Reading Mark, something caught my eyes a long time ago when Jesus was asking a question. I always wondered WHY He was asking that question. What question was Jesus asking? Jesus asked, "Which is more difficult, to heal disease or forgive sin?" (Mk. 2:9). Mark 2:9-12 (NIV) Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . ." He said to the paralytic, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!" Legalism of healing have taken over the true meaning of the Great Commission. Conversion happens: people don't get saved unless they are desperate over the disease of sin, not because of physical illnesses. True conversion occurs when desperate people come worshiping God--not seeking things for themselves, but seeking God's glory by asking for forgiveness of their SINS. True salvation means that we don't take the perspective of asking God doing a favor for us (i.e. healing, wealth). At salvation and througout our Christian lives, there's no self-will or self-centeredness, and no acknowledgement of rights or claims involved. We can't be saved without faith and with regard to salvation, we are touched and cleansed from SINS when we came to Christ in faith, only in terms of the disease of sin which is worse than the diseases.

Favoritism, Legalism, Analyticalism

Reading Acts 10:34, God do not show any favoritism. 'Then Peter began to speak: "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism"' God is no respecter of persons, we know. We can't show partiality to the healthy. We can't let the healthy dictate our theology. We should live simply and focus on the things we can do in your life, and we can't get too analytical. Am I doing too much of this? Is this the Holy Spirit? Is this me sinning? Is this the devil? Is this God? We just need to accept what's happening in our lives and don't stuggle ourselves over them. As long as our conscience is clear and our heart is pure before God, don't be concerned with issues. I mean, it's like losing ourselves in the pursuit of Christ and let everything else take its place like legalism of healing. We have to turn people outside, focus on spiritual, the reality of Christ and don't be analytical.

God is NOT impressed.......

God is not impressed by my appearance (1. Samuel 16:7). The Lord said to Samuel, "Don't judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord don't make decisions the way you do. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at a person's thoughts and intentions (heart)." (NLT). Jesus even said that appearances can be deceiving (Matt. 23:27), therefore we are not to judge others by their appearances (James 2:2-4). Many Christians are judging based on success and health: "The trouble with you is that you make your decisions on the basis of appearance." 2 Corinthians 10:7 (NLT). Inner beauty is more important than physical beauty (1 Peter 3:1-6). Christians are warned to be careful about their welfare because they should care more about spiritual than physical welfare (1 Tim.2:9-10). In Proverbs 21:2, "People may think they are doing what is right, but the Lord examines the heart." (NLT). God is looking for Christians who will worship Him from their hearts, minds and bodies. The heart is where God meets us because that is where we make our decisions. Our hearts are where our desires and motives are located. It is important to understand that our hearts is the state of our "flesh". Our flesh search for pleasure, pride, passions and selfish motives. The heart is the source of our emotions, thoughts and motives. By holiness does not mean I will be sinless but I can be blameless. My life as a Christian takes work and requires the commitment of my heart, mind and body. I need to have a “Christ-like attitude” (1 Peter 4:1-2). Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:1 “Imitate me, as I also imitate Christ”. Christ is not outside of me but He is inside me. Since Christ is within me, I must listen to His Word and walk in His steps (2 Corinthians 4:10). With Christ inside me, God has granted me the ability to understand the truth and live accordingly (1 John 1:5-6). I am God's letter, written in my heart to be known and read by everybody. I am to show that I am a letter from Christ, the result of His ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of my heart (2 Corinthians 3:2-3). I am being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5). I am encouraged by God that I am to offer my body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is my Spiritual act of Worship. I will not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by renewing of my mind with the Word of God. By understanding the Word of God, I will be able to test and approve what God's will is; His good, pleasing and perfect Will (Romans 12:1-2). Showing a Christ-like attitude toward all (Rom. 12:7-21), exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), and maintaining a life of prayer (Eph. 6:18; Phil. 4:6). Jesus Christ calls us to discipleship, to take up our cross and follow him. Through the gift of God's saving grace, we are empowered to be disciples of Jesus, filled with his Spirit, following his teachings and his path through suffering to new life. A disciple of Jesus is to know life in the Spirit. Christ's definition of Beatitudes (Matthew 5) contradicts the world's standard of happiness. True happiness can only come from one source which is Jesus Christ. True happiness begins in my heart, mourning over sin which leads to meekness. From the attitude of meekness, I hunger and thirst for righteousness. Through Jesus Christ, I can receive God's mercy and righteousness that my heart will be pure. When I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord, the Holy Spirit came into my heart and cleansed my sins and purified my heart. Only God can provide happiness when I have Jesus Christ in my heart and only Jesus Christ can give me true happiness. Happy are those who joyfully endure problems and trials because knowing God is teaching and leading me to where He want me to go. Enduring trials are part of a Christian's life. (Read: Romans 3 and James 1).

Holiness

Holiness is "I can do everything through him who gives me strength." (Philippians 4:13) regardless what happens in our personal situations. Holiness is giving ourselves to Christ (see Romans 12:1-2). God has given the Holy Spirit to enable us to have a holy relationship with our Father. The key to holiness is submitting to the Spirit's control in daily life that will enable us to overcome the human nature and live through grace's sufficiency. We cannot make ourselves holy but He can. The key is we are to be trustful faith in Him rather than be trustful in faith. Holiness is our spiritual relationship with God alone. It appears that (reading this thread and other threads) that everything is based on "visible" because people are looking at situation based on external elements of doctrines rather than internal and spiritual. The word "visible" is closely related to "legalism". Each of us can always trust the Holy Spirit in our lives and experiences, but we have to be careful no to trust our human reasoning and our fleshly conclusions based on visible activities. There is a great concern about people who talks too much about our relationship with faith and not enough about our relationship with Jesus. There are Christians whose experience does not follow a true inner longing to be more like Jesus. My will or God's will Jesus gave an example about God's will when He revealed His holiness when He cried in His agony, "Not my will, but thine, be done" (Luke 22:42). Here two wills, the lower will of the human who was God and the higher will of the God who was Man, and the higher will always prevail. So, by following Christ's example, we are to follow God's will and decisions. Back to the topic of "healing". Why put pressure on those who are not healed to focus in what needed to be done rather than encouraging them to use their circumstances to reach others who are in the same situation (as Joni did). God have been using those who are in similar circumstances as part of God's Great Commission. Now, if you don't believe that is God's will, then I feel sorry for those who is focusing so much on "FAITH" rather than God.