THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT – Part One
When Jesus
was with the Apostles, He told them that the Holy Spirit was with them but that
they needed to wait for the promise of the Father and then the Holy Spirit
would be in them. He was talking about the Baptism of the Holy
Spirit that the Apostles, including 120 people, received in the upper room on
Pentecost which was 50 days after Jesus had ascended into Heaven. The Holy Spirit appeared in physical form as
tongues of fire. “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in
other languages, as the Spirit kept giving them clear and loud
expression.” Acts 2:4
What is this
power that they received? What is this
power that you and I can receive? It is
the power to hear from God, to speak in tongues, prophesy, do signs, miracles,
and wonders, and much more. In short, the
gifts of the Holy Spirit can be made manifest through us as we seek the Lord.
The Baptism
of the Holy Spirit is the release of the power of the Holy Spirit within us
that brings about the manifestation of His power living within us through the 9
gifts of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit can
manifest any one of these gifts through any believer anytime that He will want
to do so.
The Nine Gifts of the Holy Spirit
are:
1. Word of Wisdom
2. Word of Knowledge
3. Gift of Faith
4. Healing
5. Gift of Miracles
6. Gift of Prophecy
7. Gift of Discerning Spirits
8. Speaking in Tongues
9. Interpretation of Tongues
The Gifts of the Holy Spirit can be
categorized into 3 groups:
Revelations gifts:
Word of Knowledge; Word of Wisdom
Power gifts:
Faith; Healing; Miracles; Prophecy; Discerning of spirits
Worship gifts:
Speaking in tongues; Interpretation of tongues
The explanation of the following
gifts of the Spirit are from the article “9 Powerful Gifts of the Spirit From
the Bible,” by Jack Wellman
REVELATION GIFTS:
The Word of Wisdom:
The Word of
wisdom is important because it enables a person to speak with insight beyond
their own understanding. It is God
giving us direction in a particular situation on how to act and apply that
knowledge you have about something in your life. For example, God may give you wisdom about
not apply for a particular job or not to date or marry a particular person.
A Word of
wisdom can also be given for the common good.
In a particular situation, you could be given wisdom about a particular
group or person. It could be a “gut
feeling.” Many times my husband will
say, I just have a gut feeling about this and most of the time it is correct. I am sure many of us have had this gut
feeling. Just remember that out of our
inmost being will spring rivers of living water----the Holy Spirit.
The Word of Knowledge:
This gifts
enables a person to know information supernaturally that they wouldn’t know
through natural means. It is simply the
Holy Spirit giving us specific knowledge about something pertaining to us or
someone else. For example, a person
leading a healing service might get a word of knowledge that someone in a
particular part of the gathering was being healed of a particular disease. It can come in the form of a word or
something you see in your spirit. Some
people actually have pain in their own body where someone else is being
healed. I usually will see something
like a word or a picture in my mind.
The word of
wisdom and knowledge can operate together like it did for Joseph in the
Bible. God gave Joseph a dream that
contained the word of knowledge about Egypt and the famine and then the word of
wisdom about storing food to provide for people during the famine.
Dreams can
be very powerful. My husband has had
many beautiful dreams. I have had dreams
that have literally set me in a particular direction. All of us have dreams and all of us have
thoughts that enter our minds and maybe word pictures. We need to ask God what He is saying to
us. I believe He is speaking to us many
times in many different ways.
One day,
when my husband and I were out of town, Marty got a sense that we should leave
that very evening. He had a “gut”
feeling and as it turned out it was good that we left earlier than we had
planned because as it turned out, he needed to contact his dad and several
other things occurred that required our presence and action. The Holy Spirit had given a word of knowledge
and wisdom in this particular situation.
During the
reception of Communion one day, the Lord gave me a word of knowledge about the
Eucharistic Minister distributing Communion.
As I spoke to him about it one day, he confirmed the word to me.
THE POWER GIFTS:
Faith:
The gift of
faith is a special grace given by God allowing someone to pray with
extraordinary faith for something seeming impossible. It is the confidence you have that what God
has revealed to you through Jesus or the Holy Spirit through maybe a word of
wisdom or a word of knowledge is going to happen at your command.
It is
different than maybe just “ordinary” faith.
For example I have faith that when I flip a switch, a light will turn
on. I have faith that when I wake up in
the morning that I can see, walk, hear, etc.
The gift of
faith is necessary in our everyday lives.
In Mark 11:23 it says, “Truly I tell you, whoever says to this
mountain, Be lifted up and thrown into the sea!
And does not doubt at all in his heart but believes that what he says
will take place, it will be done for him.”
This is the kind of faith that God expects from us. This is the kind of faith that needs the power of God to accomplish. So many time Jesus said that because of one’s faith, that the person was healed. When God gives us a word of knowledge for our own healing or that of someone else, we need to act on it. Moses lifted up his staff and the sea opened up. He also brought water out of the rock by faith. Gideon defeated the Midianites by the manifestation of his faith in God to help him.
In our own
lives, our granddaughter, Anastasia, was healed from a cancerous tumor wrapped
around one of her kidneys. A routine ultrasound revealed a cancerous tumor weeks before she was born. We had faith in the Word of God and asked
others to stand and when she was born, the tumor and the kidney were removed
but the tumor was not cancer and now she is a very healthy 4 year old!!
HEALING AND MIRACLES:
Another
power gift is healing. God is a
healer. He is creator. Jesus commissioned us before He ascended back
to the Father in heaven to heal the sick.
Healing can be a natural process.
After all, healing comes from the Creator God. We can also pray for healing. Sometimes it produces immediate results and
sometimes it happens over time.
The gift of
miracles produces mighty works of power that are instant and not explicable
through any natural means. Jesus
performed many miracles. He turned water
into wine. He multiplied the fish and
the loaves of bread by the thousands. He
raised people from the dead and the list goes on.
There have
been healings and miracles that occur without human intervention such as mass
healings at some events where no one touched anyone or said anything but the
power of God was made manifest and healings and miracles have occurred.
Just like it
was mentioned before, the gifts of the word of knowledge and wisdom can also
work hand in hand with healing. A person
may know exactly what to pray for as revealed by the Holy Spirit. I think that this increases the person’s
faith who is being prayed for and faith is the catalyst for most healings. I know of some people who have not prayed for
healing but have received a healing—even doubting Thomas’s.
Healing and
miracles are signs for the believer and the unbeliever. So many times after Jesus performed miracles,
more people believed in Him and spread the word about Him.
The gift of
faith is so important when it comes to healing.
The woman with the issue of blood in Luke 8 touched the hem of Jesus’
garment because she believed that if she touched the fringe of His garment that
she would be healed, “And He said to her, Daughter,
your faith has made you well! Go in
peace.” Luke 8:48
This
happened as Jesus was on His way to heal the daughter of Jairus. After he healed the woman with the issue of
blood he went to Jairus’ house and when he got there they said that the girl
was already dead and they became fearful so Jesus asked everyone, except the
girl’s father and mother, Peter, John and James to leave. Why did He ask these people to leave? I think because they were full of fear and
they had lost their faith. Fear cancels
faith which is important in receiving your healing.
This also
happened in Acts 9:40 when Peter sent all of the people out of the room after a
woman had died and he commanded her to get up and she was resurrected from the
dead.
This is part
I for the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. We
will talk about the rest of the gifts in the next program. We will also be talking about receiving the
Baptism of the Holy Spirit. So stay
tuned.
