by Tony Copple (and L-A, Kaysha and Daniel) (A Day at My Father's House Worcester) Pictured above, is L-A, and to the right is Tony sharing at My Father's House Worcester. These pictures were taken by one of our leaders, Chantal on L-A's phone. She usually takes selfies, but blessed us with these as well. L-A captured Tony and Daniel practicing up for the music. L-A is otherwise singing and playing bodhran, and some of the children shakers. This sharing was mostly by Tony, but he invited L-A and our friends Kaysha and Daniel to share as well. This is how it unfolded: Tony: God is like one man with three jobs – God the Father is the creator. He made us. Jesus is like the designer. A designer helps people to make something, that’s Jesus. And the third one has the job of being the comforter. But he’s one person. One person. We’re going to think and learn about the Holy Spirit today. Daniel: Hello guys, I remember you from last week. You know that God is a person, right? He is in heaven, but can be in your heart too. He can be in heaven, but we can be all the time with God, because the Holy Spirit stays right with us. And he’s always speaking to us. Tony: Daniel is from Brazil. Who knows where Brazil is? It’s in South America. But we have someone who is from North America. This is Kaysha. She’ll tell you about the Holy Spirit in her life. Kaysha: I’m Kaysha, I’m from America, and right now I’m living in Robertson. That’s not very far from you. I want to tell you about the Holy Spirit. He’s personal for me and he’s personal for you. He loves all of us the same, but he loves each one of you, individually and uniquely as you are. So for me, he loves me and he’s like a best friend to me and to you. Do you know that about God? (yes) L-A: You all know who I am, Tante Laurie-Ann. I also come from North America, but in Canada. And for me, Holy Spirit is a friend. Even when I didn’t know God, I knew about God. I was actually into evil spirits and not the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit starting speaking to me about finding God. I remember sitting at my friend’s kitchen table, and my life wasn’t going very well. So I said to myself, “Well, next year is going to be the year when my life is going to change.” And do you know what? The Holy Spirit came to me and touched me. He felt like a waterfall of joy and love over me. Do you know what he said to me? He said, “Good, now is the time to find God” – and I knew he meant Jesus, because the Holy Spirit always points to Jesus and always points to the Father. So I began to search for Jesus, and I began to read the Bible. I then went to a conference, where a man told me that you could only love Holy Spirit and not evil spirits. Jesus became my friend that night and Holy Spirit washed over me again. So Holy Spirit since then has always been with me. He’s the one who gives me strength, he’s the one who gives me smiles, he’s the one who gives me joy. And if you’ve ever noticed, the Holy Spirit comes to you through my smile. Tony: It’s my turn to share about the Holy Spirit. I have Holy Spirit on my phone (and my heart). I’m going to tell you some things about him. I heard this teaching this week from a wise man who knows Jesus very well. Here are some things that he said about the Holy Spirit. First of all, the Holy Spirit makes us STRONG. He makes us strong. Another word for strong is that he makes us mighty. He makes us mighty. And he makes us able to do things. In the Bible, they say ‘mighty’ a lot. They say God is mighty. God almighty – and that’s because of the Holy Spirit. He’s the one that gives us strength – and even Jesus needed the strength of the Holy Spirit, when he was on earth two thousand years ago. He had to have the Holy Spirit in his heart, so he would know what to do. In those days, not too many people had the Holy Spirit in their heart, just a few people. So if Jesus needed the Holy Spirit, you can see that WE need him even more. We need him a lot more than that. The Holy Spirit may be part of ministry. I’d like to say that the Holy Spirit is here, and he is laying hands on this group of people (Tony touches some of the kids). His holy hands are touching everybody here, so we have the Holy Spirit watching over us. But he is also IN people. He is here in ministry. I know for a fact that he is inside Laurie-Ann’s heart. And he’s inside Daniel’s heart and Kaysha’s heart. Am I right? Actually, he’s in all your hearts. He’s inside talking to you, but you have to learn how to listen to him. He’s the one who will guide you. We will see a movie about this a little while later. The Holy Spirit is a leader. He leads us on paths that we have to go on. He may say to somebody, “You need to go to Africa – there are children who want to know about me.” And there are other children, in China, in Africa, in all these places. The Holy Spirit gives them that feeling that they just want to come. And the Holy Spirit empowers people. That means he gives them power. So you may think you’re a little bit weak and you’re not very good at something. But when you’re doing something for God, then he will give you the power that you need. He will give you the strength and the knowledge. I love feeling the power of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I feel him a little bit, sometimes I feel him a lot. So he anoints us. Anointing is like he touches this hand, and says, I’m not you, but you will have special capabilities from me. You can read about that in the Bible. I’d like to think that he wants to anoint all of us for something special. I am weak. But if I have the Holy Spirit, then I can be strong. I don’t mean physically strong, I don’t mean that I can come and lift a car up. But I mean that he gives me strength, like right now, to talk to you about him. That’s coming from him, and not coming from me. He is our stand by. Sometimes we call him our stand-in. Sometimes we fall by the wayside. We are not doing what we should do. We drop out a little bit. The Holy Spirit can take over a little bit. He can stand in for us. You know, whatever strength you think we have, it is TINY compared to the Holy Spirit’s strength. The Holy Spirit’s strength is huge and our strength is tiny, so we need his strength in our lives. Now Jesus, before he died, he said to his apostles, “When I go away” )he meant when I die) “then the Holy Spirit will come.” The Holy Spirit will come. He won’t come unless I die. So people were a little confused, they didn’t know what he was talking about. But what he meant was that when he went back to heaven, to be with the Father; then the Holy Spirit would come and be available for everybody. This meant more than just for a few people, like it had been at that time. So Jesus said, “When I go away, I will send the Holy Spirit to be a comforter. He will be a comforter. He will also be an advocate. Now advocate is another name for a lawyer. It means that if you end up in a court of law, you have a lawyer who puts your case before the judge. The Holy Spirit will take our case. He will say, ‘Yes, I know he’s done some bad things in his life, but he’s also done some good things.” That’s the kind of help he can give. And he will be a counsellor. A counsellor is someone who can give you wisdom, or advice. Most of us don’t know much about anything. So if we need help, we can go and ask someone who can help us. That’s what a counsellor does. He’s a helper. He’s an intercessor. That means he helps us pray, and is passing our prayers onto God the Father. So when you pray, don’t ever think your prayer is wasted, because the Holy Spirit is carrying your prayer to God the Father. Alright, so that’s a few things about the Holy Spirit, and now we’re going to have an Alpha video about “Who is the Holy Spirit.” The following week, we invited the Iris Harvest School extended outreach from the Robertson area base to come minister with us. It was the Holy Spirit day "How can I be filled with the Holy Spirit?" Not only did they join us, as well as our friend Daniel, but MFHW founder Jan Buchanan was there as well! What a blessing! Here are montages of that day:
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AuthorTony and Laurie-Ann Copple (usually Laurie-Ann) L-A's devotional blogTONY'S DEVOTIONAL BLOG
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