The Well
The Well |
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Connecting Hope to the Hurting | |
Monday
February 18, 2008
To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another he
gives the gift of special knowledge. The Spirit gives special faith to another,
and to someone else he gives the power to heal the sick. He gives one person the
power to perform miracles, and to another the ability to prophesy. He gives
someone else the ability to know whether it is really the Spirit of God or
another spirit that is speaking. Still another person is given the ability to
speak in unknown languages, and another is given the ability to interpret what
is being said. It is the one and only Holy Spirit who distributes these gifts.
He alone decides which gift each person should have.
1 Corinthians
12:8-11
While God gives certain spiritual gifts to certain people to be used consistently, in this particular passage, Paul is saying that when the Body of Christ comes together these particular gifts will manifest in the people present who are willing vessels; based on what is needed at the time, at least that is what I receive.
Jesus promised us that when two or more are gathered in His name that He is there in the midst of them. Well, we know we have the Holy Spirit inside us if we are born again so what does it mean that He is with us when two or three are gathered? Personally, I take it to mean that the Holy Spirit will come in, meet with us and spiritual gifts will be used and/or distributed as needed.
God has allowed me to flow in the prophetic in the past and He has used my hands to heal people, but I do not flow in those gifts all the time; just when He shows up and needs an available vessel, and honey, let me tell you, I love to be used by Him!
There have also been times when I've been in groups and I feel like a knot on a log and very useless. When I sought Him later He reminded me of this scripture: "The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up only one body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into Christ's body by one Spirit, and we have all received the same Spirit." 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 There are times when my part in the Body is simply to be present. As you very well know, some parts of the body are just more useful than others, but we need all the parts to be complete.
So, if right now you feel God isn't using you to flow in any gift, maybe He simply needs you to be faithful. I'm no nurse, but I know that certain body parts do not function constantly. For instance, when I am sitting down, my feet get in my way sometimes. Being a short person they either dangle uselessly off my chair, not touching the floor, or they are wadded up under me, and eventually begin to hurt. Then, again, it would be very hard for me to get up and go to the kitchen if they weren't operating correctly.
So, don't despair friend, if you are hungry to be closer to God and be used by Him, just practice being useless and if you do real well at that, He will send you marching in His time!
Father, I lift up my brothers and sisters who may be reading this and feel that somehow when you dispersed gifts they must have missed out. Touch them with a fresh anointing and with spiritual understanding of how the gifts operate. Help us know You better and become more willing to flow in the anointing. We trust You to guide us when the time is right!
