Greetings my brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. The Lord blessed us once again with another spirit filled message. This week our scripture reading was 1 Corinthians 12:7-13. We were going to look into the Spiritual gift's that are given to us when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. First we needed to understand that these gift's are to Glorify God and we have responsibilities that come with these gift's. We are given the gift of the Holy Spirit upon our salvation and that is when the work begins. We are a new creature in Christ's eyes and we are now acceptable to God. These spiritual gift's are given to us by God's sovereign choice and are not based on our worthiness or our abilities.
Why do we receive these gift's? We looked into three key text's that answer this. Romans 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, 1 Peter 4:10-11. Paul identified different gift's to the Romans than to the Corinthians and Peter spoke of them but didn't specify them. The importance of these gift's is to Glorify God. Why do we receive them? To make the body (the church) functional and whole (Romans 12:5).
How many gift's are there? Well, opinions vary on the amount and what they are. Romans 12 list's twelve and 1 Corinthians 12 list's nine. Some of these gift's overlap but there is an indication there are more.
We looked into the gift's that are mentioned in Romans and 1 Corinthians. Wisdom and Knowledge: The ability to grasp spiritual truth's in the word of God and to apply them to life. Prophecy: The ability to provide divine revelation to the church. In the New Testament it seems that it is used to determine God's will more so than foretelling future events. Discerning of Spirit's: This gift is usually connected with prophecy. It is the ability to check the authority and validity of a message or messenger. It's purpose is to prevent False Prophecy. Healing and Miracles: These gift's are commonly referred to as "Sign Gift's". In the early church they were used to validate Jesus' ministry. The church was young and many miracles and healing took place. Today the church is established and solid. God still heals and administers miracles but they have seemed to have decreased with the establishment of the church. Tongues and the interpretation of tongues: One of the most misunderstood gift's. We looked into the Greek word used in scriptures. The word "glossa" means any language. We looked at Acts 2:6-11 and saw that although the disciples did not know the language of the Galatians everyone heard the message of Jesus in their own language. There are two key points in this scripture. 1) The crowd's heard and understood what was being said about Jesus and 2) We were told what languages the message was received in. The key point here is Language not babble. We then looked into Faith, Serving, Encouraging, Giving, Ruling, and Mercy all self explanatory. All these gift's have one common denominator. They are given by God Himself, for His Glory in His church.
We can learn from these gift's but we shouldn't limit them or you have missed the point. In these three passages we are given a specific purpose and that is where our attention should be focused. Romans 12:8 Use these gift's according to the charter of God and His revealed will. Simplicity, diligence, and cheerfulness. 1 Corinthians 12:25 Given for No Division in the body, and that we should have equal concern for one another. 1 Peter 4:11 "That in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ".
In closing, we all have spiritual gift's, given by God's Grace, to Glorify Him and His church. We are to express His charter through our simplicity, diligence, and cheerfulness. They are given to us to keep the body of the church from separation, to make us equals. They are not for our personal benefits.
I handed out a "Spiritual Gift Survey" to the congregation and asked them to fill them out and return them to me next week. I'm excited to see how our diversity will strengthen God's church. Till next week, may God Bless everyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment