Spiritual Gifts for the Body
God gives special and specific gifts through His Holy Spirit to be used in His body. These gifts are NOT given to unbelievers and are NOT for personal edification.
We have already seen that God gives talents to all people. We have also seen that He uses these people and their talents to serve His body, church. Today, we will look at specific gifts that come through the Holy Spirit. These gifts operate directly through Him. Anyone employing ANYTHING that imitates these gifts but doesn’t come through the Holy Spirit is practicing witchcraft.
First, I want to go back to something I touched on earlier. It is the difference between being born of the Spirit into new life and the infilling of the Holy Spirit. I’m PRAYING with ALL MY HEART that I am speaking ONLY the truth of God here. I do NOT want to be an author of confusion or teach false doctrine. I am speaking from what my understanding of this subject is. If your understanding differs from mine, ask God to show you which is His truth. If he confirms your understanding, discard mine. This is NOT a distinction that determines salvation. With that said, here goes.
When anyone accepts Jesus as their Lord and Savior, their spirit is reborn and becomes alive. At that moment God, in the form of the Holy Spirit takes up residence in our heart. We read in John 14:23 where Jesus said that those who love Him and keep His commandments, He and the Father would come and dwell in them. When Jesus said “We will come to him and make Our home with him” He was speaking of the all-inclusive godhead. Just as Jesus is God, so is the Holy Spirit. All three are ONE. But their different aspects manifest differently. The Holy Spirit is the One Jesus promised His disciples would come to live within them. This happens on our ‘rebirth day’. Once the Spirit is in residence in our hearts and we let Him lead our us, His ”fruits” begin to operate in our lives. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22b-23a).
As a believer, who has the Holy Spirit in residence in our hearts, we are encouraged to seek more of God’s power in our lives. In Acts 19, Paul met up with a group of believers who had not heard of the power of the Holy Spirit or even the Holy Spirit Himself. They had gone as far as they understood in living the life of a follower of Christ. They had recognized their need for a Savior and accepted His forgiveness for their sins. But God had more for them. Paul knew this because he had been through a ‘two step’ conversion too.
On the road to Damascus, Paul encountered Jesus and he believed in Him. Paul prayed to the Lord for three days while he waited for what God would do next in his life. He had a vision of part of what was to come but not all of it. Paul had seen that his sight would be restored but NOT that he would also be FILLED with the Holy Spirit. When Aninias came to Paul, he told him that God would restore his sight AND that he would be filled with the Holy Spirit. Both Paul’s filling and that of the believers in Acts 9 happened with a special prayer by those who were already filled with the Spirit’s power. Both recipients of this prayer were also baptized in conjunction with this filling.
So, now we come to the gifts that allowing the Holy Spirit to FILL our hearts brings into operation. GOD chooses which gifts to manifest in our lives FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE BODY. We see them listed and explained in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11. ALL believers are born of the Spirit and ALL believers have the SAME Spirit at work in their lives. Those whom God chooses will manifest the ‘working’ gifts of the Holy Spirit will use them to help the body of Christ. “For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues” (1 Corinthians 12:8-10). These gifts are not given for an individual to promote themselves but FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE BODY. They bring healing to the hurting, hope to hopeless, encouragement from the Lord, understanding for the seeker, wisdom to guide those questioning, build faith in those who are struggling, His words to those without access, and miracles to bring people searching for the Miracle Worker. These are His gifts to His body through one another when we allow the Spirit to empower us.
I won’t claim to have any of these gifts at work in me. I don’t know if He has given me a portion of understanding or wisdom so that I can share what He gives to me with you. If it is, I PRAISE HIM with ALL my heart and THANK HIM for using me.
Father God, THANK YOU for filling me with Your Spirit. For making Your home in my heart FOREVER. I can’t imagine my life without You. Even if I can’t assemble with a body of believers, I am part of Your body. You NEVER leave me alone. You bring me exactly what I need when I need it! THANK YOU for ALL Your gifts to me, in EVERY form.
