The Gifts of the Spirit – Being Available
-by David King
Studying 1 Cor. 12:1-11, 27-31.
Starting in verse 1, Paul said that he wants us to have revelation of “spiritual things,” or as I would say it, “the things of the Spirit.” In today’s intellectual age, there is pressure for Spirit-filled Christians to water down the Christian walk – to become heavy in intellectual things and light, or even completely void, of spiritual things. However, Paul said that we need to understand them, walk in them, and manifest them.
He then speaks of the nine gifts of the Spirit. The word “gifts” in the Greek is xárisma, which means the operation of a grace-endowment to edify the Church which divinely empowers a believer to share God’s work with others. The current mindset of believers is that the gifts of the Spirit are a rare thing, and even at that we only see the utterance or revelation gifts manifest. In all reality we don’t see them operate as much as we should, and we don’t see the power gifts manifest much at all.
When I speak of the utterance gifts, I speak of: prophecy, diverse tongues, and interpretation of tongues. The revelation gifts are: the word of wisdom, word of knowledge, and discerning of spirits. And finally, the power gifts are: faith, gifts of healing, and working of miracles.
We need to have understanding of the things of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit before we can manifest them. No understanding = no manifestation. We also need to know that they’re available and required to walk in! We must shake off the mindset that you as an individual don’t have any of these gifts to manifest and that you don’t have any responsibility to do so. You have them and you can do it!!
We can’t back off because of misunderstanding of verse 11 which says the gifts operate as the Spirit wills. That is true of course, but the problem is that the majority of Christians aren’t willing or interested, and then neglect to manifest the gifts of the Spirit and say it’s because the Spirit wasn’t willing. My friend, if you manifest a gift of the Spirit in your life every time the Spirit of God is willing, you would have given a few words of knowledge to people, seen another one healed, and had an interpretation all within the last week if not more! The Spirit of God is much more willing than we are available!
I challenge you and myself today to become more available. Let’s get to the place where we are as available as He is willing and we’ll see this world shaken by the Gospel of Good News and powerful demonstration!
-David King
