Oxford Bible Church - Living in the Last Days

(1) The Holy Spirit is a PERSON, not an impersonal force, and (2) He is fully GOD, for God is ONE God, who eternally exists in 3 Persons: Father, Son & Holy Spirit. (1) He has intelligence, desires, will, emotions, and acts as a Person. (2) He is called God, has God's attributes and does the works of God.

The Bible predicts modern inventions in the end times in such a way that we can identify their fulfilment -such as rapid transportation, cars, planes, worldwide travel & communications, satellite TV, computers & uses of electricity and light. This scientific accuracy and prophetic foresight proves its Divine Origin.

God revealed scientific inventions and discoveries ahead of time, His Signature on Scripture, as a witness to its truth. It predicts: (1) an exponential increase of knowledge in the end times (Dan 12:4), (2) the atomic structure of matter, (3) nuclear reactions and weapons of mass destruction (Matt 24:22).

The Prayer of Dedication of ourselves to God (1Peter 5:6), includes Prayer of Commitment or casting our cares on the Lord (v7). This is the offering up of incense before the holy of holies, which opens the veil for us to enter into face-to-face worship, where His Hand of love, peace and power comes upon us.

To love God is to desire ever-increasing union with Him, causing us to seek Him to know Him for who He is in Himself. If we seek Him (by giving Him our love), then we will find Him, by receiving His glory (manifested love) in our heart. Our union with God is created by a mutual giving and receiving of love.

God loves us with passion, but for a love-relationship to work it must be two-way, so we must have a heart to seek God, to know and love Him for Who He is in Himself. He wants us to return to our first love, letting go of all idols claiming our heart, surrendering to His love and giving ourselves fully to Him.

In His love, God is a jealous consuming fire passionately pursuing us, wanting all of us, to give Himself fully to us. On the Cross, He overcame all barriers to make this union possible. He now calls us to love Him with all our heart. To love anything else more than God is idolatry - the essence and root of all sin.

The Presence of God is a central theme of the whole Bible. We are designed to live by God's Glory (Presence), just as we live by the air we breath. Man originally lived in His Presence (Gen 3:8) but lost it thru sin (Rom 3:23). Christ opened up the Way back into His Presence, but it is up to us to press in.

Into the Word God TV with Derek Walker Promotion

Genesis 1:1-3 reveals how God works in our lives. Two things are necessary for a MIRACLE: (1) God's WORD and SPIRIT which communicate His Presence (Light) into us. (2) A receptive VOID within us, which God’s Presence can fill. Derek illustrates this vital truth with a number of scriptural examples.

Seeking God results from valuing His Presence, for "where our treasure is, there our heart is too" (Matt 6:21). To increase your valuation of His Presence meditate on (1) what it would be like if He withdrew it from you, (2) the price Christ paid to give you His Spirit, (3) how much you need His grace for your life.

Through the Temple God revealed His plan for union with man. He dwells in the Secret Place (the Holy of Holies). By (1) praise, (2) thanksgiving and (3) worship we set our love on the Lord, giving Him our (1) mind, (2) emotion and (3) will, opening our heart to His love, and enabling us to enter into His Presence.

Like Moses we must have a much greater passion for His PRESENCE, than His PRESENTS (Exodus 33). God wants us to love Him (the Blessing) more than His blessings, to seek the Giver more than His gifts. If we SEEK first His PRESENCE, then His PRESENTS will be added to us (Matthew 6:33).

Chronicles tells us the story of the kings from God’s viewpoint, assessing them based on their HEART. We study God’s report card on a number of kings (David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Uzziah, Hezekiah, Josiah) seeing how He assesses their reigns according to how they SOUGHT God.

"SEEK the LORD and His STRENGTH; SEEK His FACE forevermore!” (Psalm 105:4). When we SEEK His FACE, His Hand of STRENGTH comes upon our hearts, filling them with His life, righteousness, love, joy, peace and wisdom. Seek first His PRESENCE, before His PRESENTS! (Matthew 6:33).

Hilary motivates us to pray in the Spirit by sharing from Scripture and from her and others' experiences the power released through praying in tongues, whereby we build ourselves up spiritually (1Cor 14:4), and allow the Holy Spirit to take hold of us and make intercession through us (Romans 8:26-27).

The Holy Spirit lives within us and wants to help us pray and intercede. As we submit to Him, He will fill us and empower our prayers, giving us the utterance (Acts 2:4). As we yield our tongues to Him and speak His words, we pray God's perfect will into the situation (Romans 8:26-27, 1Cor 14:2-5, 14-18).

The Gift of Faith is an impartation of a portion of Divine Faith to a man, enabling him to believe God for something that is beyond his own normal faith. He releases this 'Faith of God', as God did at Creation (Gen 1:3), by speaking forth the desired end-result, believing that it will come to pass (Mark 11:22-23).

Both the Gift of Faith and Working of Miracles are Power Gifts, releasing God’s Power to accomplish a miraculous change in the natural order, which could not happen otherwise. With the gift of faith a man RECEIVES a miracle, but with the working of miracles a man WORKS a miracle. We give examples.

A Gift of Faith is a portion of God’s faith (Mark 11:22) imparted by the Spirit to our hearts thru a special word from God, enabling him to trust God for a special need in a specific situation, which goes beyond his normal faith from the Bible. He releases this faith by speaking it forth, believing it will come to pass.

The word of wisdom is the first and highest of the 9 Gifts of the Spirit (1Cor 12:7-10). It's a supernatural revelation by the Spirit of God’s plan and purpose for a person’s life. It is directive, giving wisdom for what to do, based (usually) on a revelation of the future. We give many Bible examples of its operation.

1Corinthians 12:7-11 describes 9 Manifestations of the Spirit. The 2nd one is the Word of Knowledge - a supernatural revelation by the Spirit of certain facts in the mind of God, a small portion (word) of His knowledge of present or past facts, which otherwise we couldn't know. We give Bible examples.

After describing the Gifts of the Spirit in 1Corinthians 12, Paul describes the 2 WAYS to pursue the Gifts: (1) DESIRE the Gifts to operate through us, but (2) the most excellent WAY is to pursue LOVE (1Corinthians 13). LOVING people will activate our DESIRE for the Gifts, as a means of blessing them.

In this Series, we study the 9 supernatural gifts of the Spirit of 1Cor 12:7-11, consisting of 3 revelation gifts, 3 power gifts and 3 utterance gifts. We see that these gifts have not passed away and are for us today. They operate as the Spirit wills, but we must make ourselves available to Him for Him to use us.

In Praise, we open the gates of our heart to welcome the King of Glory, allowing Him to fill us with His Presence and Peace. The Triumphal Entry shows how Jesus comes to us, offering Himself as our Lord and Saviour, and how we should respond to Him. Jesus rode on both a DONKEY and her COLT. WHY?